By Bakary Touray Jr
Gambia’s Finance and Economic Affairs, Mr. Mambury Njie, and Mr. Alexandre POINTIER, the French Development Agency (AFD) Regional Director for Senegal, The Gambia, Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau, on Monday 9th December 2019, signed a financing agreement formalizing a 2 million euros budget support to The Gambia.
According to a press release issued by AFD, further to the 2017 democratic transition in The Gambia, the Government of France has expressed its willingness to work towards the “renovation” of its diplomatic and economic relations with the country.
It recalled that during the International donor Conference for The Gambia in Brussels in May 2018, France pledged to contribute to the economic stabilization of the country and to support the implementation of the National Development Plan with 50 Million euros to be disbursed over 2018-2021.
The financing agreement signed today, between AFD and the Government of The Gambia, is a second budget support operation, and it comes in addition to the pledge made at the Brussels conference, as the press release indicated.
In 2018, the French Government granted a 5 Million euros budget support to sustain the macroeconomic stabilization of the country and to ease the transition towards an IMF-financed program.
The AFD explained in its release that: “The purpose of this second operation is to safeguard poverty-reducing spending and to support efforts by the government of The Gambia to restore fiscal balance.
“As such, it will both seek to safeguard poverty-reduction expenditures and alleviate the government’s financing gap.”
It further states that, as expressed in the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Republic of The Gambia and the French Development Agency on November 5th, 2018, in the presence of Mr. Jean-Yves LE DRIAN, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, it’s expected that AFD and The Gambia would increase their cooperation.
“In the short-term, it is up to 26.5 Million euros programs that will be implemented, in addition to budget support, in the areas of agriculture to increase food sufficiency, and access to water in urban areas to support sustainable public services development,” the press statement concluded.
About the Agence française de développement
AFD is France’s inclusive public development bank. It commits financing and technical assistance to projects that genuinely improve everyday life, both in developing and emerging countries and in the French overseas territories.
Our action is fully in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through its network of 85 agencies, AFD operates in 109 countries, where it is currently financing, supervising and supporting over 3,600 development project.
