The Gambia’s economy continued to recover in 2022, albeit at a subdued pace in a sluggish global economic environment. Real GDP increased by 4.3 percent (1.8 percent in per capita terms) in 2022, unchanged from 2021, when economic growth was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic following a sharp deceleration to 0.6 percent in 2020.

The Gambia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change from increases in temperature, decreases in rainfall, and a rise in the sea level, which affect millions of people and make adaptation more urgent. Rapid changes in climate tend to have severe effects on a country’s key economic sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and health.

The Poverty and Gender Assessment examines the structural challenges to securing a robust and inclusive recovery from the pandemic and sustained progress in poverty reduction and gender equality in The Gambia.

This study provides an overview of the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in The Gambian economy, identifying sectoral policies likely to yield good outcomes, and those in which structural reforms are needed to enable the country to “build back better”.

Agriculture is a key sector of the Gambian economy and contributes to 17% of GDP and 30-40% of export earnings. It employs almost half (46%) of the workforce and is the source of income for 80% of the rural population.

Addressing the challenges of changing climate is both a sprint and a marathon — it demands a two-pronged approach of urgent short-term actions combined with innovative planning to manage future risk.

The impacts of COVID-19 are being felt across The Gambia’s socioeconomic landscape, exacerbating existing inequalities and threatening hard-won progress.

Agriculture is a major source of livelihood and income in The Gambia. Despite its socio-economic importance, the sector faces many institutional, technological, and biophysical challenges limiting its contribution to economic development.

Over the past decade, the Gambia has registered some progress in improving the nutritional status of children, particularly the reduction of the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children under five years of age.

This report is the Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) of The Gambia Agriculture and Food Security Project (GAFSp) in fulfilment of the requirement of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) Integrated Safeguards System (ISS), which requires that all Bank-funded Projects either avoid completely negative impacts, or minimize such