By Amadou Manjang
The Office of the Vice President in collaboration with International Organisation on Migration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has organised a two-day forum to update the National Voluntary Review Report of the Gambia’s progress on the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM). The forum was held at the Sir Dawda Jawara International Conference centre.
The event was held ahead of Gambia’s participation in the upcoming International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) to be held in May 2022 in New York.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Ms. Seraphine Wakana, UN resident Coordinator, said migration is one of the critical areas that cut across all walks of life and that migration is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
She said the GCM implementation review was timely for The Gambia as the government is in the process of designing a National Development Plan.
“The GCM review meeting will provide us with an opportunity to leverage the tools and resources to identify key milestones as well as challenges in implementing GCM objectives,” she said.
Wakana further said the review will concurrently support the government in effectively mainstreaming the recommendation and suggestions into development planning.
GCM was adopted in 2018, representing a commitment by UN member states to international cooperation on migration rooted in the Agenda 2030.
“This review meeting in the lead up to the upcoming IMRF provides the government with the opportunity to recap what has been achieved so far and should be done going toward ensuring effective implementation of the GCM objectives in the Gambia,” she said.
Wakana pointed out that Cross Border Cooperation is important to the UN Common Country Analysis (CCA) that was designed for the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF). She also said the importance of having issues of migration and cross border cooperation incorporated into CCA as it’s the cooperation framework cannot be over emphasized.
Meanwhile, in 2020, The Gambia has conducted the national review exercise of the implementation of GCM which was followed by the Africa Review Conference in 2021.
