The Vice President of The Gambia, Hon. Badara Joof represented the President, H.E Adama Barrow, at last week’s launching of the respective 40-Million-Dollar and 16-Million-Dollar ‘The Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Agriculture Value Chain Development Project (GIRAV) and The Gambia Agriculture Food Security Project (GAFSP), held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Conference Centre.
In his launching statement, Hon. Joof expressed appreciation to the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the implementing partners who are currently supporting the implementation and coordination of these two important projects.
“I urge all of you to apply vigor, effectiveness and commitment to the interest of national development so that the patiently awaited farmers, women, children and youths harvest the benefits of these projects,” he stated.
V.P Joof further assured them Government’s support at all times, stating that these projects will be implemented to the letter and will demonstrate the outcome and impact inherent in the development objectives of the two projects.
He recognised the passion of Gambian farmers that continues to give them and their development partners the hope and the motivation to invest in the agricultural value chains in this country.
Dr. Demba Sabally, Minister of Agriculture unveiled the overarching goals of the GAFSP which according to him is to improve food and nutrition security as well as household incomes, particularly for the vulnerable households, through the strengthening of the Sustainable Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.
The GIRAV Project on the other hand, he said, aims to support the development of inclusive, resilient, and competitive agricultural value chains, focusing on smallholder farmers and agric entrepreneurs in targeted project areas.
“To achieve these objectives, the project will support targeted investments in infrastructure the technical and organisational capacities of actors particularly youth and women and other stakeholders along the agriculture value chains, consistently making use of proven climate-smart technologies, providing nutritious school meals and facilitate access to finance by individuals,” he asserted.
Hon. Sabally went on to explain that that the World Bank – Gambia Government funded GIRAV will scale up the achievements of its predecessor project, GICAV while building synergies with other partners geared towards increasing climate change resilience and inclusive value-chain development.
Supervised by African Development Bank (ADB), the GAFSP, the minister explained, will scale up the achievements of its predecessor project FASDEP while building synergies with other partners particularly the World Food Programme (WFP) towards increasing climate resilient value chain development as the basis for a sustainable Home-Grown Feeding Programme,” he revealed.
Yasuhiro Tsumura, World Food Programme (WFP) Representative and Country Director stated that the presence of WFP marks another strategic partnership that among many others aimed at supporting the Government of The Gambia to accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
“We look forward to implementing this 5-year project successfully and making a difference in the lives and livelihoods of the beneficiaries,” he stated.
Minister of Finance, Hon. Seedy K.M Keita said the event marked a significant milestone in the strong and time-vested partnership between the government of The Gambia, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank.
