By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
The Gambia Investment and Export Promotion Agency, GIEPA, in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade, Regional Integration and Employment MOTIE and United Nations Development Program UNDP has recently validated the Terminal Evaluation of the Empretec project.
According to officials the Empretec Project is a small and micro enterprise project that was funded by the United Nations Development Programme Country Office in the Gambia for a period of three-years, from June 2014 to June 2017, but extended for another three months to the end of September 2017.
The project was hosted by GIEPA on behalf of the Government of the Gambia. The forum was held at the Empretec Centre office in Bakau.
The Trade Permanent Secretary Madam Naffie Barry presided over the official opening ceremony and expressed gratitude to the UNDP for complementing the Government’s effort in funding the three-year project.
Barry noted that Empretec is here to stay, whether as a project or not, and called on the UNDP for more support and collaboration with the Gambia Government.
PS Barry noted that the terminal evaluation report of EMPRETEC project was commissioned by the UNDP, which sought to measure the impact of the project’s interventions in Gambia on entrepreneurial behaviour and attitudes within the target beneficiary population, that include micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in the Gambia.
“For the purpose of this evaluation a mixed method approach was taken, this approach entails document review, particularly of recent evaluations of the project through the quarterly progress report, annual monitoring and evaluation reports and the mid-term report of the project, key stakeholder interviews and focus group discussion sessions,” she noted.
For his part representative from the UNDP, Abdou Jobe thanked the Government of the Gambia and its people for the close partnership and collaboration with UNDP all the times.
According to Mr. Jobe, UNDP sets out to provide programme support to the Gambia Government in its effort to reduce poverty through promotion and sustaining inclusive development, with a view to ensuring equitable growth that benefits the poor and the vulnerable.
For his part Abdoulie Drammeh from GIEPA said in his welcoming remarks that the Empretec was established at the initiative of the Government of the Gambia in a public partnership arrangement with the UNDP, other donor partners and the private sector.
