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Govt. calls for concerted efforts on development

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Her Excellency, Aja Dr Isatou Njie Saidy, vice president of The Gambia has underscored the need for concerted efforts in ensuring an all-round development across the world, especially in developing countries.

She said this at the launch of the 2009 UNDP Human Development Report on Migration entitled “Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development”, held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.

According to the vice president, Human Development Reports address issues that are of concern to national, international and the entire global communities. She said while these issues cannot be addressed in isolation, there is the need for the involvement of the people from various institutions and organizations, including those at the grassroots levels.

She said this year, the HD Report addresses pertinent issues in human development, while it engages the minds of intellectuals ranging from the media, policy makers, politicians as well as the civil society organizations.

She said this thus makes the report an accessible tool for reference and solutions that would address the world’s most pressing contemporary challenges.

The participation of the various stakeholders is significant, said the veepee, who noted that their role is recognized in the development programme of The Gambia.

The launch of the report, she hinted, has thus created another opportunity for stakeholders to reflect over salient economic and social problems associated with current development challenges that the world is facing today including the subject of migration.

“The report we are launching today is full strong messages about a world that has become and is increasingly becoming unequal; a world where for most people, living their abode for otherdestinations could be the best option, and sometimes the only solution.”

According to Dr. Njie Saidy, some countries have seen migrants and migration as the cause of problems including the global economic crisis, not realizing that migrants also contribute to development of host countries.

She said some people do migrate on genuine reasons as a result of various problems such as environmental problems, civil crises, real pastures, poverty or and other social circumstances related to the issues where the destination country can be better fit for their survival which have proven right to some of them.

She said: “The report features the challenges we face and must live to, to further reflect on ways that migration can touch people’s lives, and how governments could open new frontiers and policy for safer mobility and the enhancement of human development.

It also calls for deeper, stronger international collaboration to address the restrictions on the movement of people form both within and across borders, alongside measures that can improve every prospect that a migrant on the move foresees to gain in his/her place of destination.”

According to her, many issues addressed in the Human Development Report on Migration constitute food for thought for the stakeholders in their respective capacities.

At this point, she said that the government of The Gambia is ever mindful of the immense social and political responsibilities it owes to its people, in particular the youth folk who constitute the most excited group when it comes to migration, both internally and beyond the national borders.

She said in fulfilling these responsibilities, the government created some developmental projects that would also create vibrancy for the youthful population through the support of some European governments such as Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Germany to ensure that these youths avoid the hazardous and perishable journey to Europe. She said other projects to fully develop the rural areas have also been developed.

The Gambia government, said the veepee, is not anti-emigration but would also not encourage the clandestine journey that will affect its citizenry noting that they are fully and well committed in protecting The Gambian people.

She further revealed that relevant rural-sector friendly programme was designed that would transform the sector by providing attractions of equal quality and quantity for work, income, and sustainable livelihood, demonstrated by continual improvement of farming and agriculture, provision of rural electrification, water, health, sanitary, and educational facilities, expanded road and feeder road construction works and transportation among others.

These would be made possible through the government’s decentralization programme that will bring the rural population closer to key social and economic services and to poverty reduction.

She also revealed that the country has stayed within the safe levels of the region’s average economic growth despite the current global economic crisis, noting that the relative large volume of remittances from Gambians in the Diaspora is an important source of growth and poverty reduction.

“These remittances accounted for up to 10 percent of per capita consumption in 2006 although in the wake of the global crisis, this has dropped to about 6 percent in 2008. Importantly, these statistics confirm the fact that the benefits of migration to countries of origin and also the destination cannot be ignored,” the vice president noted.

She however noted with concern the downsides of migration for developing countries where skilled professions such as nurses, doctors, engineers etc leave this part of the world and are absorbed by developed countries. “This trend warrants a closer study and a collaborative venture to create the best condition for the retention of the scarce skilled labour.

Sub-Saharan Africa is hard hit, having one of the highest tertiary migration rates from as low as 34 per cent for Ghana to 54 per cent for Mozambique.”

She further urged the stakeholders to also focus their attention to the plight of the relatively large unskilled labour, who are faced with hostile migration laws in their new destinations, whose laws and policies largely disregard the rights of migrants to decency, dignity and respect. Such focus, she noted, would be necessary for them to implement proper decisions rather than restrictions.

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Govt. calls for concerted efforts on development