The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has recently
awarded The Gambia a US$34 million project to reduce the poverty of
rural women and youth in the country.
The project, National Agricultural Land and Water
Management Development Project dubbed Nema, is to increase the incomes of rural
women and youth from improved productivity based on sustainable land and water
management practices.
According to Mod K. Ceesay Deputy Permanent
Secretary of Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Nema project is one of the biggest IFAD programmes in The Gambia
to
help smallfarmers, especially women and youth, to improve land and water management to
increase rice and vegetable production.
Momodou Gassama, coordinator of the project,
said the Nema project is targeting all the six agricultural regions in the country
and will focus on
women and youth to enable them to participate more actively in development initiatives.
The Nema project would support and develop
further The Gambia Government’s priority to transform the largely rain-fed
production systems into sustainable market-oriented agriculture based on the
smallholder, mainly women and youth.
Fatou Samba Njai, President of the Women Wing of the
National Coordinating Organisation for Farmers Associations The Gambia (NACOFAG)
acknowledged that farmers were fully involved in design of the Nema project.
