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”. The report also uses an innovative Bayesian Vector-Autoregressive (VAR) approach to investigate the relationship between key macroeconomic variables (GDP, government spending, total public debt and current account) and their implication for debt sustainability under two distinct scenarios: “building back better” or optimistic scenario, and “vaccine nationalism” or current global scenario. Finally, the study provides a forward-looking costing exercise focusing on key sectors (e.g., agriculture, education, health, roads, water, and electricity) for the overall financing needs for the country’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 Agenda.
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