The GYIN Gambia Executive Director, Mamadou Edrisa Njie has called on development partners and donor agencies to invest a funding package of $15 million in a bid to enable his organization to realize its innovative ideas in creating 70,000 direct and indirect jobs for young people across the country.
To implement these ideas, Mr. Njie noted that his organization is requesting for only this amount and within three years, 70,000 jobs will be created.
Speaking at the Youth Trade and Agribusiness Forum on the theme “Youth Employment in Agriculture and Tourism as a solid solution to ending Food Insecurity and Unemployment in The Gambia” at the ongoing National Youth Agribusiness and Tourism Expo 2018, organized by the Gambia Youth Chamber of Commerce (GYCC) at the Independence Stadium in Bakau, he assured that GYIN Gambia is ever ready to refund the money in full to any donor or development partner, if the project fails.
His words: “I want to put on records that with GYIN Gambia initiatives, we can create direct and indirect jobs for 70,000 young people across the country if given the financial muscle. Any donor or partner who is ready, we (GYINers) are ready to share our innovative ideas with you.”
Njie, who is the “Youth of the Year 2017” Award Winner stated that land, water and human resources are all available in the country, lamenting that only financial resources are lacking to implement its innovations from pilot to scaling up-to make the programmes larger in size, amount etc.
GYIN Gambia has fully participated in the designing of the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema Project), which is a US$65M IFAD/IsDB and AfDB co-funded project which started implementation from 2012–2019 inclusive and is directly benefiting: 28,729 households.
As a key stakeholder, GYIN Gambia Chapter is a nominated member of the Project Steering Committee for Nema project and has collaborated with the project for the implementation of youth-related activities such as training and small-scale vegetable garden production. Also a member of the Nema Inter-Professional Body, a body which advices the project in the implementation of project activities related to rice and vegetable production and value chain addition.
The core focus of GYIN Gambia in this domain is to mobilize the rural youth for effective participation in agro-entrepreneurship.
Within the framework of the Nema project, GYIN Gambia Chapter participated in designing of the Strengthening Climate Change Resilience of the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema-Chosso). GYIN-Gambia provided the youth perspective in the context of resilience building for the Nema interventions.
“Rural transformation is an effective way to overcome poverty, food security and job opportunities through the value chain thus building partnerships to facilitate the transformation of smallholder farmers,” he said.
In The Gambia, Mr Njie noted that few aspire to remain in rural areas and make a living out of agriculture simply because they (rural youths) are not getting the support that they need.
While calling on the government and donor partners to consider funding youth initiatives, he noted that investing in rural young people is crucial for dynamic economic growth.
“The funding that youth organisations and networks in this country are receiving from the central government and donor partners is very low,” he decried, saying the young people of this country are not lazy and they will never be lazy.