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toubab1020
12311 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Sep 2011 : 17:14:41
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A letter from the UK to The Daily News.
http://dailynews.gm/africa/gambia/article/the-gambia-and-the-state-of-dwindling-development-crisis-how-social-justice-becomes-another-politica
The Gambia and the state of dwindling development crisis:-How social justice becomes another political illusion?
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Dear Editor,
The Human Development Index of United Nation Development Programme 2006, has indicated that Gambia and many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are the worst place to live on this planet.
What another disheartening report of hopelessness, despair, hunger, poverty and development crisis. For many people who are clouded with what is happening in the Gambia, this report is not a surprise.
The hypothesis is that our people are poor because they are not empowered and are poorly governed.
UNDP measures the global trend of development using indicators such as life expectancy, access to health and sanitation, literacy, safe drinking water, access to food and nutrition, environment, democracy and human rights.
It is a fact that human development cannot prevail in an environment where there is continuing attacks on individual liberty and democracy and this are the realities prevailing in the Gambia.
Gambia, under 17 year’s rule of Yahya Jammeh is degenerating into social disintegration together with an economy which is collapsing into Mafioso-style chaos.
All the development arms of the government such Department of Agriculture, health, water resources, community development, education, forestry, social welfare etc, which can diffuse and replicate development innovations to communities and grassroots organisations has collapsed into bankruptcy due to deficits in budgetary allocation to re-finance development programmes in the public sector.
Today the majority of our people are hallowing in absolute poverty while the disparity between the rich and poor is much wider as ever before. Gini coefficient measurement of the Gambia, according to World Development Report indicated wider issues of inequality.
The recent report as a follow-up to the 1992 International Labour Organisation poverty survey indicated a massive increase in rural and urban poverty from 52 and 50 percent level in 1982 to 80 and 75 percent respectively.
The report also figured an increase in both income and food poverty. This shows that the daily life of average Gambians is characterised with despair and hopelessness while there is no realistic political will in place to address the issues of their living on the edge.
Looking into human development indicators such as safe drinking, it is a fact that no life as we know is possible without water. Access to safe drinking water, is a determinant of human development.
Taking for example, Brufut with all the housing regenerations and building hotels, estate development and African Union village and their self- aggrandizement and property accumulation in that area, yet no efforts is done to provide the inhabitants of that village with access to pipe-borne water.
Is infrastructural development better than basic needs of the people? Is the Government not aware that access to safe drinking water as a social service is an un-indisputable right for her citizens.
Spending money on Pajeros and Mercedes while blindly forgetting priorities, is increasing human suffering from diseases to premature death - a scourge which takes a heavy toll among our people whom they claimed to emancipate 17 years ago.
APRC Government with its short sighted plagiarize vision 2020 think that development is a quick fixed solution and they have answers to all the development issues confronting our nation.
Failing to realise that PPP government with all its shortcomings have gone a long way addressing the need of Gambia’s farming community both in terms of input delivery, microfinance and agricultural marketing.
One fundamental mistake of PPP was dissolving institution such as the Gambia Cooperative Union. It was the nerve centre for farming community. We can reduce poverty in our societies without easy access to credit and to enable us to trade to the rest of world with diverse Agricultural products.
The Cooperative movement in the Gambia with all its problems have gone a long way to overcome the challenge of the uncertain business environment more so what was needed was institutional reform such as fiscal discipline and capacity building to encourage member participation in decision making and democratic accountability.
Today, United Kingdom Cooperative movement is been transformed with business outlets in every towns and cities promoting ethical trading and banking which could have been replicated in our situation.
The Gambia Cooperative Union and its member cooperative societies were not only the marketing outlet for agricultural produces but the main source for the provision agricultural inputs, implements and also consumer Cooperative shops to the farming communities.
For many years of investment in Agricultural sector, our people don’t enjoy food security. Efforts set to sight for food self-sufficiency becomes an illusion as food poverty numbers is at an increase level often through measuring nutritional survey, income and basket of consumption indicators.
Many communities in Central River Division which used to have some degree of food security with the coming of Jahally-Pacharr rice project after the 1970 drought and also small-scale rice development project in Niamina are now confronting with food insecurity.
Today, they face lack of high yielding improved variety of seeds, degrading tidal irrigation system and lack of pump and fuel to access fresh water from the river Gambia to irrigate their fields.
The economy is anaemic and with rising unemployment and failing agricultural sector the tide of rural/urban migration is beyond the records of Gambian statistic.
There are enormous challenges facing development crisis in our country and all these cannot be addressed without looking into good governance, rule of law, democracy, human rights and external financing of development programmes.
Gambia’s development programme is partly finance by bilateral and multinational aids. In this age of embracing democracy as universal value development aid, debt cancellation is always link to conditionality such as rule of law, human rights and social justice.
In order to meet our development challenges such as environmental degradation, high population growth, hunger, malnutrition etc, the only solution is putting in place a political system or government with humane face but not a government which is always involved in murky murder, illegal arrest and detention of its people as a strategy to suppress their liberty and democratic rights.
Author: Abdoukarim Sanneh, United Kingdom
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"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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Edited by - toubab1020 on 20 Sep 2011 17:17:14 |
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