Gambia

This paper uses network analysis to map and characterise live animal trade in West Africa. Building on a database of 42 251 animal movements collected by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) from 2013-17, it describes the structure of regional livestock trade at the network, trade community and market levels. Despite yearly fluctuations in the volumes and spatial patterns of trade, the paper shows that regional livestock trade operates on well-established trade corridors as animals flow in specific directions. The study also confirms that livestock trade is structured around several national and cross-border groups of markets that exchange more animals than expected by chance. Close to two-thirds of all animals are shipped internationally, indicating that regional animal trade in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is remarkably cross-border. Finally, the paper finds that the hub markets that concentrate the most shipments also handle more animals and trade with more markets. Additionally, peripheral markets have more defined roles as primarily origins or destinations of animal shipments than markets in the core of the network. Of the nine key markets identified, three are close to borders, highlighting the importance of Nigeria as a livestock consumption destination for regional livestock production.

THE GAMBIA HAS MADE MAJOR progress towards macroeconomic stability in recent years, with growth averaging 6.5 per cent since 2004 on the back of prudent monetary and fiscal policies alongside structural reforms. For 2008, however, GDP growth is estimated to have slowed to 5.7 per cent because of the global financial and economic crises. Unfavourable global developments are likely to lead to reduced exports, tourism receipts, remittances and foreign direct investment flows which will restrain growth over the near term. GDP growth is projected at 5 per cent in both 2009 and 2010.

Economic growth was hurt in 2011 by a harvest crop failure, but agricultural production started to recover in 2012 and real GDP growth accelerated in 2011. The outlook is optimistic for 2013 and 2014 as real GDP growth is projected to reach 4.3% and 5.1% in 2013 and 2014, respectively, on account of strong expansion in agriculture and tourism. These projections are on the high side; performance will depend on the efficacy of the drought emergency plan, as well as on the impact of government reforms implemented to sustain the agriculture sector.

Economic growth decelerated from 6.3% in 2010 to an estimated 5.5% in 2011 and is expected to stabilise around 5.6% in 2012 and 2013. Since late 2008, economic growth in The Gambia has been mainly driven by good performance in the agricultural sector. Nonetheless, poor weather conditions, which harmed crop production in 2011, and the global crisis in recent years have affected projected GDP growth negatively in the country. Reforms implemented by the government in agriculture, however, will continue to boost the economy and sustain its growth.

Gambia is a low-income country with a structural food deficit but it has managed to post relatively strong growth rates over the past three years. In 2010, growth slowed to 5.4% from 6.7% in 2009 as the global slump continued to be felt on re-exports, tourism and remittances. Growth should pick up to 5.6% this year and next. Good harvests -- especially of rice -- and gains in the construction and banking sectors drove economic growth. The newly-launched National Agricultural Investment Plan aimsto improve agricultural sector productivity.

The Gambia is a small, open economy surrounded by Senegal and the sea. The majority of the population lives on subsistence farming. Nevertheless, a dominantly larger share of value added in the country comes from service industries such as trade, transport and tourism rather than from agriculture. With growth in the past three years averaging 6.3%, The Gambia ranks as one of the highgrowth economies in western Africa.

Under the 1997 Constitution, women in the Gambia are accorded equal rights with men. Yet they continue to experience discrimination and inequality, largely because the patriarchal nature of Gambian society reinforces traditional roles of women. In addition, the country has a dual legal system that combines civil law (inspired by the British system) and Islamic law. Provisions under the latter law are generally viewed to be discriminatory towards women, particularly in relation to marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Informal employment, defined through the lack of employment-based social protection, constitutes the bulk of employment in developing countries, and entails a level of vulnerability to poverty and other risks that are borne by all who are dependent on informal work income. Results from the Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Households database (KIIbIH) show that a disproportionately large number of middle‑class informal economy workers receive remittances. Such results confirm that risk management strategies, such as migration, play a part in minimising the potential risks of informal work for middle‑class informal households who may not be eligible to social assistance. They further suggest that middle‑class informal workers may have a solvent demand for social insurance so that, if informality-robust social insurance schemes were made available to them, remittances could potentially be channelled to finance the extension of social insurance to the informal economy.

Using household data from 15 countries in Latin America and Africa, this paper explores linkages between informality and education-occupation matching. The paper applies a unified methodology to measuring education-occupation mismatches and informality, consistently with the international labour and statistical standards in this area. The results suggest that in the majority of low- and middle-income developing countries with available data, workers in informal jobs have higher odds of being undereducated as compared to workers in formal jobs. Workers in formal jobs, in contrast, have higher chances of being overeducated. These results are consistent for dependent as well as for independent workers. They also hold for men and for women according to the gender-disaggregated analysis. Moreover, in the majority of countries considered in this paper, the matching-informality nexus is also related to the extent of informality in a given area: in labour markets with higher informality, informal workers in particular have a higher chance of being undereducated. The paper discusses policy implications of these findings.