By Omar Bah
The United Nations Resident Coordinator in The Gambia has expressed his profound admiration for the country’s remarkable shift from decades of authoritarian rule under former president Yahya Jammeh to a stable democracy.
Speaking to The Standard on Wednesday during a courtesy visit to the newspaper’s new offices in Fajara, UN Country Representative Karl-Frederick Paul said Gambians should be proud of the country’s democratic transition from dictatorship.
“The Gambia has done tremendously well. It is really a model of transition towards a fully democratic society. I can affirm that to you. And if I have two words for that, it is respect and admiration. It hasn’t been easy pre-2017 but the tremendous progress that we have seen, you don’t see that very often in many countries including my own native, Haiti,” he said.
He said The Gambia has a functioning democracy, timely and participatory elections, an active civil society, civic space, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, among others.
“It is extremely impressive. And I can even push further that important democratic and governance reforms are taking place whether it is the TRRC, SSR or different changes at fiscal level and the policies and audits that are taking place. It shows that democracy is vibrant and quite alive. We can always do better as anyone but Gambians should be very proud of their country,” he observed.
UN interventions
Commenting on United Nations interventions in The Gambia, Karl-Frederick Paul posited: “These include the support the UN provides to member states, stakeholders or government apparatus and working with civil society as implementing partners to implement projects and targeted programmes dealing with zero hunger, access to education, gender equality, health and wellbeing.
“So our work here is about the seventeen UN agencies at different levels. I will say our work is quite extensive and profound and we are committed to continue working with the government and the population to make sure that sustainable developments can be reached by the deadline of 2030 and also the African Union deadline of 2063.
“We have a certain set of output and impact indicators. So there is a system in place that allows the UN to monitor its interventions through different branches. The impact, monitoring and learning department continuously monitors to ensure course of action. But for me, it is much more important to make sure we ensure sustainability first by learning and also having an exit strategy,” he added.
