BAC Chairman Darboe relishes China experience

The Brikama Area Council (BAC) Chairman Yankuba Darboe has described his recent visit to the People’s Republic of China as an eye-opening and inspirational experience, offering useful lessons for local governance and development in The Gambia.
Chairman Darboe was among a delegation of local government representatives who travelled to China at the invitation of Chinese authorities to explore opportunities in governance, infrastructure, agriculture, and community development.
The Gambian team consists of 3 Chairmen/Mayors of Basse, Kuntaur and Kerewan Area, 2 deputy chairmen/mayors of Banjul and Mansakonko, and 2 councillors from KMC and Jangjanbureh. The team was taken through a 3 weeks capacity building seminar on the “Introduction and Utilisation of Foreign Capital of Inland Regions for Developing Countries”.
The seminar, funded by the government of China consisted of lectures, symposia and site visits to experience the practical application of what they were learning in real life.
Speaking upon his return, Darboe expressed admiration for China’s rapid transformation and development model, highlighting the country’s efficiency in urban planning, infrastructure growth, and public service delivery.
He noted that The Gambia could draw valuable lessons for grassroots development, particularly in areas such as waste management, sustainable agriculture, and local empowerment.
“China has shown us what deliberate planning, investment in infrastructure, and empowering local governments can achieve. My experience there was both a learning journey and an inspiration to work harder for the people of West Coast Region,” Darboe remarked.
He further acknowledged the warm reception and hospitality extended by Chinese officials, stressing that the trip also created avenues for potential partnerships in trade, capacity building, and technology transfer.
Chairman Darboe pledged to build on the exposure by strengthening transparency, accountability, and service delivery within the council. He added that lessons from the trip will be shared with his council team, with a view to translating them into practical improvements for local communities.
“China, despite its rapid and remarkable development over the last decade, is still humble to share their experiences with the world, most specifically their strategic development partners, which included The Gambia. This was what prompted their invitation to our local government delegation from the Gambia, and other delegates from other landlocked countries, like Lesotho, Palestine, Armenia and Kurdistan in Iraq.” 
He added: “It is part of China’s strategic development partnership strategy, in which it does not become dependent on as a donor nation to give us handouts every now and then. Instead China wants to inspire us, as their partners, through sharing of their knowledge and experience to empower us to overcome the challenges impeding development in our country and most developing or underdeveloped nations, by finding our own footing or economic model to register progress and prosperity.”
This, Mr Darboe, “Fits perfectly in line with the Chinese dogma that if you give a person a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for the rest of his life. This is further not only an adage of the old in China, but a strategic development policy blueprint of its central government, which had enabled them to successfully combat corruption and alleviate extreme poverty in the country.
“They did this by adopting zero tolerance against corruption, which they succeeded through ensuring accountability of all public offices, and further empowered the poor with the knowledge and skills required to become economically independent in society. In that way everyone is discouraged from dependency culture on the state or others and become economically independent on their own.
“They further transformed their economy in such a way that politically, they remain a socialist nation but with the Chinese characteristics, whilst economically they transformed from planned economy to market driven economy, which successfully catapulted them from being an underdeveloped nation with the world’s biggest population to the world’s biggest industry. We hope with knowledge and experience imparted we can now strive for an economic model for The Gambia, which will have the Gambian characteristics!” 
The recent visit of local authorities marks another phase in The Gambia’s growing cooperation with China, especially in the areas of infrastructure, capacity development, and cultural exchange. Local government representatives like Chairman Darboe believe such engagements could play a meaningful role in uplifting grassroots communities.