When my mandate started, in 2018, it was not lengthy after the tip of the dictatorship [The two-decade rule of Yahya Jammeh]. The brand new Authorities was already embracing a number of reforms concurrently, reviewing the structure, the judiciary, and the safety sector, and the UN had allotted funds for peacebuilding.

Fact and reconciliation

An essential growth was the institution of the Fact, Reconciliation, and Reparations Fee (TRRC), with the backing of the UN and different companions.

Folks had been enthusiastic to embark on the Fee, which has been crucial for the nation. Expectations had been excessive from the victims, from the inhabitants, but in addition from completely different companions. It was essential that it must be a Gambian-driven course of, to keep away from any affect from outsiders. We helped to set it up and supplied the required experience to run it.

The Ministry of Justice must be strengthened, as a result of they’re main that course of, and that is the primary time that they’ve needed to face a case like this. Right here once more, we’re offering the experience to work on a roadmap that may result in implementation of the Fee suggestions.

We’re concerned in communications linked with the method: we need to be sure that the communities, native governments, and civil society all know what function they should play, and handle expectations. These reforms aren’t going to occur in someday, it is going to take a few years, and we have to be sure that is known.

Now it’s time to place reforms into follow. To date, the Authorities has launched a white paper approving nearly all the suggestions. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed the method, however I feel that they’re nonetheless dedicated to do extra.

Laying robust foundations

It’s essential to have a authorities that reveals management. If not, you may define a imaginative and prescient for the place you suppose the nation ought to go, however you gained’t get wherever.

We’ve supported the Authorities’s creation of a Division for Strategic Planning and Supply, inside the workplace of the President. We’ve skilled the employees, and proven them greatest follow in different nations.

After we arrived, there was no Minister for Gender, so we advocated for a brand new ministry to be established, and we’re seeing progress by way of girls’s empowerment.

Popping out of a twenty-year dictatorship, the place human rights had been abused, we supported the creation of a Nationwide Human Rights Fee, which is totally practical and, in some ways, a centrally essential establishment, which can monitor the implementation of the TRRC.

Going ahead, it’s essential for The Gambia to reach constructing robust establishments, one thing which is true for all nations. If establishments are weak, you may’t implement any plans, and also you waste assets.

I feel that this nation is shifting in the appropriate route. We’ve many extra companions now, and the donor group is rising. After a five-year interval, the transition is sort of full, and we’ve helped the Authorities to put the foundations for a lot of the reforms, insurance policies, and techniques.

Altering lives for the higher

Apart from supporting the reforms, we’ve been an energetic associate in growing the economic system, empowering girls, and local weather motion.

By way of the economic system, the place tourism performs an essential function, UN companies have targeted on offering coaching for younger individuals and susceptible teams corresponding to returning migrants, and giving them seed capital to begin their very own companies. Typically, returning migrants really feel like a burden on their households, however with our assist a lot of them have been in a position to thrive.

Sadly, it is a nation the place there may be vital violence in opposition to girls, together with feminine genital mutilation. Typically girls don’t need to speak in regards to the violence they undergo, so we’ve arrange hotlines they’ll name, and constructed centres the place they’ll go to be handled, and obtain assist.

The local weather disaster is affecting The Gambia, notably by way of flooding; final 12 months was the worst flooding skilled right here in 38 years. It might not be on the size of the floods seen in Pakistan however, for a small nation with a small inhabitants, it made a big effect.

Our companies supplied meals and shelter for these displaced by the flooding, and offering clear consuming water, however we’re additionally serving to the inhabitants to adapt, and grow to be higher ready earlier than the following floods arrive.

I’m assured that we’ve modified lives for the higher in The Gambia. We’re nonetheless within the early levels, however I imagine that we’ve created strong foundations for growth, and that we’ll see even better impression within the subsequent 5 years, and see the nation develop in a cohesive method, in all areas of the nation, with nobody left behind.