Gambia

GAMBIAN POVERTY HAS BEEN on the rise since 1993, coinciding almost exactly with the rise to power of Yahya Jammeh, who has been president of the country since 1994. Today over 60 percent of the Gambian population live below the national poverty line. Poverty is largely concentrated in rural regions and the eastern half of Gambia. It is also markedly higher amongst women as a result of low income and marginal access to property.

The 1994 coup in which Jammeh proclaimed himself president of Gambia was accompanied by economic turmoil, which was precipitated by Gambian political instability. The country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth plummeted in the 1980s and 1990s to below two percent, and the coup constricted aid flows and tourism, which alone accounts for about half of the GDP. During the period 1983–93, Gambia's population grew by 4.2 percent, creating a substantial increase in the competition for resources. During the last 25 years, migration to urban areas because of poor agricultural performance and scarce economic opportunities has left rural areas underpopulated, while urban dwellers have experienced a shortage of social services owing to crowding. Although favorable climatic conditions have recently yielded an agricultural renewal and the GDP returned to eight percent in 2004 as a result of broad-based structural reforms, poverty is a persistent problem in Gambia.

One of the most significant problems affecting poverty levels in Gambia is the high unemployment [Page 415]rate, which in 2002 reached over 50 percent. The majority of Gambian unemployment and poverty is faced by the agricultural sector. Most of the impoverished farmers harvest groundnuts at the subsistence level, and these individuals constitute the majority of the poor in Gambia. The groundnut market value dropped 15 percent from 1991 to 1999, accounting for not only the endemic poverty faced locally by agriculturalists, but also a substantial decline in the GDP. On top of this, harvests diminished during the late 1990s because of poor weather, a depleted workforce, and insufficient facilities, while government subsidies failed to effect positive results.

The other most dramatic factor of Gambian poverty is the country's extremely poor health indicators. There are only three hospitals for a population of approximately 1.5 million people and four physicians for every 100,000 people. Communicable diseases are rampant in Gambia, and particularly prevalent in poor, rural areas. Malaria alone kills 350,000 people per year in Gambia. However, the spread of HIV/AIDS has been regulated to a one to two percent incidence rate in Gambia, which is remarkably low for the region. Approximately 38 percent of the population do not have access to clean water and 63 percent of the population are without sanitation services.

Beneficial child healthcare measures have been implemented in recent years, including an immunization program, which has infant immunization against tuberculosis and measles both in the 90th percentile and infant mortality down to 7.5 percent. However, public health programs have been economically biased, providing weaker health services to the already impoverished parts of the country. For instance, the maternal mortality rate in rural areas is twice that in urban areas.

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