The Gambia National Agricultural Investment Program (GNAP) model Report was validated on Thursday 1st October at the ACCO Atlantic Hotel in Banjul. The validation workshop was organised by the ministry of trade, industry and employment.

Speaking at the opening of the validation workshop, the permanent secretary, Ministry of Trade Industry and Employment, Mr. Secka said The Gambia National Agricultural Investment programme report comes when the ECOWAs commission has in the past few years has been working on strategies to implement the comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development programme and ECOWAP. The attempt by ECOWAS to formulate a regional Agricultural investment programme is a step in the right director, he said.

He further stated that this regional exercise needs the input from all member countries which led to the necessity for ECOWAS member states to develop national Agricultural investment programme.

Permanent Secretary Secka noted that in the Gambia work started in September of 2008 and the work is led by the ministry of Agriculture.

He emphasised that a National task force provided guidance to a lead consultant and his team did tremendous work to make the Gambia able to keep up with pace of the regional process. He further emphasized that the task of formulating a National Agricultural investment programme was fraught with numerous challenges and the right data to do modeling work proved elusive for a very longtime. This he noted was mainly the reason that progress on the assignment was not planned. "Gambians with expertise in modeling are still rare to say the least," he said

He revealed that after months of consultations ECOWAS provided support for a Gambian model to work with other experts and research institution to do the long outstanding modeling.

P.S Secka mentioned that the modeling work has the merit of different scenarios and possibilities and its also shows the potential of contribution of various Agricultural Sub sectors. "The simulation that was done with the model, indicates to us in which areas the Gambia needs to focus to make significant gains in sustained poverty reduction," he said.

He revealed that the Gambia would present its National Agricultural Investment programme to her development partners in the country for appreciation and support in mid October.

In conclusion, P.S Secka said the workshop intended to give all relevant stakeholders that have been part of the process the opportunity to take a critical look at the output of the model and also exchange on it.

He registered appreciation to the ECOWAS commission for providing financial and technical support and the international food policy research institute (IFPRI) for their valuable assistance.

For his part, the Deputy Permanent Secretary for agriculture Abdourahman Jobe in deputizing for the permanent Secretary for Agricultural noted that this programme is a relational component of the regional agricultural investment programme which came from the Agreement of the ECOWAS member countries on an action plan to implement both the comprehensive Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) and the ECOWAS common Agricultural policy (ECOWAP) signed in 2005.

He further noted that the ministry of Trade, Industry and Employment and the Ministry of Agricultural have been working and consulting with all partner institutions to ensure that the Gambia Agricultural improvement project is successfully designed and implemented for the benefit of the people in the region.

He noted that collective efforts have been put into the conception of the document and the final report has been submitted to the office of the president for endorsement. He emphasized that the way forward for agricultural development in the region is to graduate countries from the traditional system of subsistence agriculture into a modernized, production oriented system, enabling quality and excess production, not only for food security and self sufficiency, but its also for transformation, value adding, agri-business and export to significantly enhance the livelihoods of farming communities and the economies in the countries.