Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (GIRAV)

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The Gambian economy is heavily dependent on agriculture. Even though its share of total GDP has decreased over the last decade, agriculture retains a crucial role in economic growth in The Gambia. The sector contributes around 20 percent of GDP and generates 30 percent of all foreign exchange earnings. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for 80 percent of the rural population, the sector employs nearly half—46 percent—of the country’s labor force, including an estimated 72 percent of the poor and 91 percent of the extreme poor. Agriculture in the Gambia is dominated by subsistence-oriented rainfed crop and livestock production systems. The performance of the agri-food sector has been poor and erratic. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) classifies the Gambia as “a Low-Income Food Deficit Country” facing severe food security issues at both household and national levels. The COVID-19 pandemic will worsen the country food and nutrition insecurity situation. However, agriculture and agribusiness could become robust engines of inclusive growth and job creation. The country has the potential to achieve huge gains in productivity and market share, given its rich natural resource endowment and strong domestic, regional, and international demand for its agricultural products, including rice, groundnuts, cashews, vegetables, and fruits. The design of the proposed project supports The Gambia in transforming the agricultural sector into a competitive and resilient commercial agri-food sector. This transformative change will be achieved through a logical chain of activities: (i) improving the enabling environment for agriculture/agribusiness development by expanding access to markets for producers and SMEs (through better logistics, market infrastructure, critical SPS services, and access roads), improving the policy and institutional framework, and strengthening the coordination and efficiency of value chain actors; (ii) increasing the productivity and competitiveness of producers and SMEs, as well as their resilience to climate change, by expanding access to climate-smart technologies, inputs, and services; and (iii) increasing private investment along the value chains by strengthening the key public and private institutions responsible for promoting and mobilizing private investment and by providing support services (technical, managerial, and financial) to agribusiness operators. The World Bank Group (WBG) Gambia Country Partnership Framework (CPF) 2021–26 (under preparation) and recently completed Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD), “Overcoming a No-Growth Legacy,’’ fully support the national vision and objectives for the agricultural sector. The three CPF Focus Areas recognize that The Gambia can transition out of fragility only by addressing its underlying public service delivery challenges, tackling constraints on development in key economic sectors such as agriculture, and investing in human capital. The proposed project is an integral part of CPF Focus Area 2, which aims to Enable Inclusive and Resilient Private Sector Driven Job Creation through sustained support for government efforts to create an enabling business environment that fuels job creation, by boosting commercial agriculture and increasing access to finance for MSMEs, among other actions.The project will contribute to the achievement of the WBG’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, as well as the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of no poverty and zero hunger by 2030. Like other African countries, Gambia—if it is to meet the twin WBG goals and realize the SDGs—must achieve economic growth that is transformational, sustained, inclusive, and pro-poor, capable of lifting the poor one million Gambians, most of whom live in rural areas and depend on agriculture as their main source of livelihood, above the poverty threshold.