Report No. AUS0002752 © 2017 The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the govern- ments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attri- bution to this work is given. Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: “World Bank. 2022. The Gambia Economic Update: Coming Back Stronger. © World Bank.” All queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; e-mail: pubrights@ worldbank.org. Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Preface The objective of this report is to update the Government of The Gambia, think-tanks and researchers, the public, and the World Bank’s senior management on the state of the Gambi- an economy and its outlook, together with the structural reforms it requires and the develop- ment challenges it faces. The report begins with a chapter on economic developments, with sections on growth, fiscal policy, public debt, the external sector, monetary developments and inflation, and poverty. The second chapter provides a medium-term macroeconomic outlook and describes the risks the country faces and upcoming challenges. The third chapter examines the role of data in developing effective and efficient policies and outlines the data available in three sectors—social protection, education, and health—that will be key to undo- ing the losses to human capital resulting from the pandemic as well as to improving service delivery. This report is based on data available as of May 5, 2022. June 2022 Document of The World Bank iii Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Acknowledgements This update was prepared by the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice under the guidance of Nathan M. Belete (Country Director, AWCF1), Theo David Thomas (Practice Manager, EAWM1) and Feyi Boroffice (Resident Representative, AFMGM). The overall effort was led by Mehwish Ashraf (Economist, EAWM1). Analyses were contributed by Samten Norbu Bhutia (Research Analyst, IMF and ex-Consultant) who authored the ear- lier drafts of ‘Real Sector’ and the ‘Monetary Policy and Inflation’ sections. Mehwish Ashraf finalized those sections with inputs from Rafael Pardo (Financial Sector Specialist, EAWF1) and Carlos Pinerua (Program Manager, EFNFT) on the financial sector. Mehwish Ashraf au- thored the ‘Fiscal and Debt Dynamics’ and the ‘Balance of Payments’ sections. Sering Touray (Economist, EAWPV) authored the ‘Poverty: Patterns and Trends’ section with inputs from Cassandro Maria Da Veiga Mendes (Consultant). Irina Fedorenko (Consultant) authored the ‘Outlook’ and the ‘Risks’ sections. The special section on ‘Data for Better Human Capital’ was co-authored by Alison Marie Grimsland (Education Specialist, HAWE2), Penny Williams (Senior Social Protection Spe- cialist, HAWS2) and Samuel Lantei Mills (Senior Health Specialist, HAWH3) with inputs from Maame Ayegua Hagan, Jane Hak Kim and Bahie Mary Rassekh (all Consultants) and under the guidance of Rebekka E. Grun (Practice Leader, HAWDR). The section benefited from useful comments provided by Irina Fedorenko and Sering Touray. Sally Hinchcliffe (Consultant) finalized the section. Sally Hinchcliffe drafted the Executive Summary and edited the report. Blimp Digital Mar- keting developed the cover page and designed the report. Maude Jean-Baptiste (Program Assistant, EAWM1), Aji Oumie Jallow (Team Assistant, AWMGM), and Micky O. Ananth (Operations Analyst, EAWM1) provided helpful administrative and operational assistance. The report benefitted from comments provided by Edouard Al-Dahdah (Program Leader, EAWDR), Urbain Thierry Yogo (Senior Economist, EAWM1) and Theo David Thomas. The peer reviewers were Gabriela Inchauste (Lead Economist, ELCPV), Rohan Longmore (Senior Economist, ELCMU), and Waly Wane (Practice Leader, HAWDR). Document of The World Bank June 2022 iv Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Table of Contents Preface...................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................................v List of Tables, Figures and Boxes.............................................................................................................vi Acronyms and Abbreviations....................................................................................................................vii Executive Summary.................................................................................................................................... 1 A. Recent Developments.......................................................................................................................7 1. Real Sector....................................................................................................................................................................7 2. Fiscal and Debt Dynamics.......................................................................................................................................11 3. Balance of Payments................................................................................................................................................16 4. Monetary Policy and Inflation.................................................................................................................................19 5. Poverty: Patterns and Trends...................................................................................................................................22 B. Outlook and Upcoming Challenges...............................................................................................26 1. Outlook.......................................................................................................................................................................26 2. Risks...........................................................................................................................................................................29 3. Upcoming Challenges...............................................................................................................................................30 C. Special Section: Data for Better Human Capital............................................................................ 32 Scarce social protection data hamper effective policy making.......................................................................................33 Investment in education data is beginning to pay dividends..........................................................................................37 Increasingly integrated data support improved health care............................................................................................42 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................................................46 Appendix: Data and Methodology........................................................................................................... 48 References................................................................................................................................................. 49 June 2022 Document of The World Bank v Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update List of Tables, Figures and Boxes Table 0: The Gambia – Policy options to improve data for better human capital.......................................................5 Table 1: Summary of fiscal operations..............................................................................................................................13 Table 2: Gambia Revenue Authority tax collection.........................................................................................................14 Table 3: Analysis of spending.............................................................................................................................................15 Table 4: Balance of payments summary............................................................................................................................18 Table 5: Key macroeconomic indicators...........................................................................................................................29 Table 6: The Gambia social indicators..............................................................................................................................47 Figure 1: Real GDP growth: The Gambia versus rest of the world.............................................................................10 Figure 2: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases: The Gambia versus peers.............................................................10 Figure 3: Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 cases: The Gambia versus peers.....................................10 Figure 4: Point contribution to real GDP growth, aggregate demand.........................................................................10 Figure 5: Contribution to GDP by sector.........................................................................................................................10 Figure 6: Quarterly tourist arrivals and growth................................................................................................................11 Figure 7: Composition of tourists......................................................................................................................................11 Figure 8: Remittance inflows, annual.................................................................................................................................11 Figure 9: Monthly remittance inflows................................................................................................................................11 Figure 10: Trends in public debt.........................................................................................................................................16 Figure 11: Composition of current account balance......................................................................................................17 Figure 12: Inflation rate........................................................................................................................................................21 Figure 13: Money growth....................................................................................................................................................21 Figure 14: Private sector credit...........................................................................................................................................21 Figure 15: Change in loans by sub-sector, 2021...............................................................................................................21 Figure 16: Impact of COVID-19 on poverty rates.........................................................................................................25 Figure 17: Impact of COVID-19 on household consumption ....................................................................................25 Figure 18: Job losses by area of residence........................................................................................................................25 Figure 19: Income loss by area and household income..................................................................................................25 Figure 20: Transition across sectors, household heads ............................................................................25 Figure 21: Incidence of moderate food insecurity..........................................................................................................25 Figure 22: Growth in real GDP and its components......................................................................................................28 Figure 23: External sector performance............................................................................................................................28 Figure 24: Fiscal performance.............................................................................................................................................28 Figure 25: Public debt .........................................................................................................................................................28 Figure 26: Number of institutions by school level..........................................................................................................37 Figure 27: Total enrollment by school level......................................................................................................................37 Figure 28: Proportion of qualified teachers by school level..........................................................................................38 Figure 29: Proportion of qualified LBE teachers by region..........................................................................................38 Figure 30: Deliveries by CBCs versus referrals by CBCs to health facilities...............................................................44 Document of The World Bank June 2022 vi Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Acronyms and Abbreviations ABP Annual borrowing plan MIS Management information system Building Resilience through Social Ministry of Basic and Secondary BReST MOBSE Transfers Education Ministry of Finance and Economic CBC Community birth companion MOFEA Affairs CBG Central Bank of Gambia MOH Ministry of Health Ministry of Higher Education, Research, CCRT Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust MOHERST Science and Technology Ministry of Information and CDR Call detail record MOICI Communication Infrastructure CRVS Civil Registry and Vital Statistics NDB Net domestic borrowing DHIS2 District Health Information Software 2 NFA Net foreign assets National Food Security Processing and DHS Demographic and Health Survey NFSPMC Marketing Corporation DSSI Debt Service Suspension Initiative NHIS National Health Insurance Scheme ECF Extended Credit Facility NSPP National Social Protection Policy EGRA Early Grade Reading Assessment NSPS National Social Protection Secretariat EGMA Early Grade Mathematic Assessment OIC Organization of Islamic Cooperation EMDE Emerging market and developing economy PHC Primary health care Education management information EMIS QoC Quality of care system FDI Foreign direct investment RBF Results-based financing GABECE Gambia Basic Education Certificate Exam SA Social assistance GBoS Gambia Bureau of Statistics SAP Supplementary appropriation GDP Gross domestic product SDG Sustainable Development Goal GMD Gambian dalasi SDI Service delivery indicator GNHSP Gambian National Health Strategic Plan SDR Special Drawing Right GPF Global Proficiency Framework SOE State-owned enterprise HFPS High Frequency Phone Survey SSA Sub-Saharan Africa IHS Integrated Household Survey SSE Senior secondary education Technical and vocational education and ITFC International Trade Finance Corporation TVET training LBE Lower basic education UBE Upper basic education LFS Labor Force Survey UHC Universal health coverage West Africa Secondary School Certificate M&E Monitoring and evaluation WASSCE Exam MICS Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey y/y year-on-year June 2022 Document of The World Bank vii This page is left intentionally blank Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Executive Summary Recent Developments The pandemic Compared to many of its peers, The Gambia got off relatively lightly during the global put The Gambia’s COVID-19 crisis. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.6 percent in 2020, prospects on hold in compared to an average contraction of 1.7 percent across Sub-Saharan Africa. However, 2020. it was a contraction of 2.7 percent in real GDP per capita, pushing an additional 25,000 people into extreme poverty. Private consumption contracted by 1.2 percent as almost every household reported a loss of income in 2020, and almost a quarter reported job losses. Tourism went from Unsurprisingly, tourism was hardest hit, with arrivals falling by 62 percent between 2019 being the engine and 2020, leading to exports falling by 50 percent. Although they have since begun of the economy to to rebound, visitor numbers are still half of pre-pandemic levels. Despite this, The its brake, but the Gambia has performed strongly compared to similarly tourism-dependent economies, long-term impact of particularly in 2020. Favorable weather and timely supplies of inputs enabled strong the crisis should be growth in agriculture, a sector which had underperformed in recent years, helping to limited. offset the slowdown in services. Agriculture has also taken up some of the slack as employment fell in other sectors, highlighting the importance of its role as a safety net. Overall capacity and ongoing investment in the tourism sector remains enough to accommodate a return to pre-pandemic levels of arrivals, suggesting any long-term scarring will be mild. The market is also becoming less dependent on Europe, with visitors from Africa forming a greater share. Remittance inflows Central bank figures recorded official remittances (comprising both current transfers provided a cushion and investments) almost doubling in 2020 to US$590 million (32.2 percent of GDP) against the crisis. and continuing to grow strongly to 38 percent of GDP in 2021. These two years of record growth may reflect remittances being re-routed through formal channels rather than an actual increase, with household surveys reporting a decline in international remittances in the past two years, especially in 2020. However, poorer households did not report the same drop in remittances as richer ones. Remittance-supported private investment showed strong growth, sustaining robust activity in the construction sector throughout 2020 and 2021. The economy Despite further waves of infection, the country avoided further lockdowns in 2021, started to come back relying instead on mask mandates, expanded testing, and vaccinations. As such, strongly in 2021… these waves have had a more muted impact on economic activity than the first and real GDP growth is estimated at 4.3 percent in 2021, or 1.3 percent per capita, albeit below expectations. As well as the return of tourism, this recovery has been driven by sustained investment, both public and private, and a continuing strong performance for fisheries, while crops underperformed once again in line with historical trend. After falling in 2020, business confidence started to improve from the end of 2020 and, although political uncertainty and COVID-19 dampened sentiments towards the end of 2021, successful elections and improved sales and profits at the start of 2022 have helped sustain confidence. .. but the recovery Donor support and the repurposing of non-priority spending kept the fiscal deficit has not been low in 2020. However, the deficit more than doubled to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2021. accompanied by Although total expenditure fell by 3.7 percent of GDP, this could not offset a revenue June 2022 Document of The World Bank 1 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update fiscal consolidation. fall of 6.2 percent of GDP, largely driven by a fall in grants. Despite rising tax and non-tax revenues, partly due to the continuing sale of stolen assets acquired by the former regime, domestic sources have not been able to fill the gap. Current expenditure has fallen as pandemic support measures have been withdrawn, but the Government still faces high bills for subsidies in the face of rising commodity prices. Externally financed investment declined relative to GDP in 2021 but domestically financed capital expenditure accelerated to reach a record level, leaving total investment barely unchanged in 2021. Although spending The deficit was primarily financed through domestic borrowing as spending pressures pressures rose, rose with elections in prospect. However, total public debt is estimated to have declined the debt position by 2.1 percentage points relative to GDP in 2021 and the debt profile has improved, improved. with longer maturity for domestic debt. Although the Government benefited from the Debt Service Suspension Initiative in 2020 and for the first half of 2021, it did not request further relief for the second half of the year due to the 2019 debt restructuring with most eligible creditors. Similarly, the current As the economy reopened in 2021, the current account deficit widened. Exports of account deficit goods declined for the second consecutive year, while imports continued to grow. The has widened as gradual recovery of tourism helped services exports to rise by 27.5 percent in 2021. economic activity Transfers maintained their 2020 level, despite the phasing out of donor support in recovered, but the 2021, as remittances grew. The increase in financial flows offset the current account overall balance is in a deficit and boosted reserves which are at 6 months of next year’s imports of goods and comfortable position. services. The nominal exchange rate remained broadly stable, but the real exchange rate appreciated slightly. Inflationary After decelerating sharply in 2020 to a low of 4.8 percent year on year (y/y), inflation pressures have picked up again and peaked at 8.2 percent in July 2021, before ending the year at 7.6 returned with percent. This was largely due to supply related food inflation, which grew by 10 percent surging food prices. in 2021, and has increased food insecurity, particularly among the poorest and rural households. With little impact on supply driven inflation factors, the Central Bank of Gambia (CBG) maintained an accommodative monetary policy stance in response to the pandemic: reducing its policy rate from 12.5 percent to 10 percent by end-May 2020 and maintaining the rate so far. Nonetheless, the CBG has started mopping up excess liquidity since late 2021 to rein in inflation. Private sector credit growth slowed sharply in 2020, but rebounded in 2021, growing by 26.5 percent, driven by loans to construction and distributive trade sectors. COVID-19 increased The pandemic seems to have hit urban areas and the richest households hardest in poverty but its the last two years. The national poverty rate is likely to have reached 50 percent in impact was uneven. 2020, but the impact was geographically uneven, with poverty rates increasing by 5 percentage points in urban areas and declining in rural areas. Richer households saw the greatest impact on their consumption levels compared to what might have been expected without the pandemic. Poorer households saw steeper job losses initially, but a faster recovery with large movements of the labor force into agriculture, mainly among rural and industrial workers. The adverse effects of income loss is likely to have been mitigated in part by continued flow of remittances which was less volatile for the poorest households. However, poorer and rural households have borne the brunt of high food insecurity and remain vulnerable to rising prices as they spend about 65 percent of their expenditure on food. Document of The World Bank June 2022 2 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Outlook and Upcoming Challenges The impact of The Gambia is expected to continue its recovery, albeit modestly, driven by the return the pandemic is of tourism. Real GDP growth is projected to reach 5.6 percent in 2022 and 6.5 percent receding, but the by 2024—3.45 percent in per capita terms on average. Growth will be spurred by a economy still faces rebound in services, increased industrial and agricultural activity, and greater adoption global headwinds. of digital technology. However, the current account deficit is forecast to widen as services exports recover slowly and trade continues to be disrupted by supply-chain issues related to the pandemic. The Russia-Ukraine conflict will also drive up commodity prices and global cost of living rises may dampen demand for tourism in The Gambia’s main European markets. Fiscal consolidation The fiscal deficit is expected to narrow to 3.4 percent of GDP by 2024 as the government is likely, but inflation embarks on fiscal consolidation and tax revenues rebound. Improved revenue is expected to administration, strengthened monitoring of tax expenditures, and improvements remain high in the in public financial management and civil service reforms should help support this short term. adjustment. Global supply disruptions are expected to continue together with high commodity prices, which should keep inflation high, and necessitate gradual monetary policy tightening by the CBG. The Gambia remains Only 13.2 percent of Gambians are fully vaccinated, partly due to vaccine hesitancy, vulnerable to the although the Government aims to engage with communities to increase demand and emergence of new reach 70 percent of the population by the end of 2022. A low vaccination rate could variants, commodity enable new COVID-19 variants to take hold, risking further lockdowns and hitting shocks and weather- commerce, tourism, and transport hard. Globally, rising living costs, commodity price related risks. shocks and any reintroduction of travel restrictions could also hamper the tourism- driven recovery, push up inflation and widen the fiscal and current account deficits. In addition, erratic rainfall, leading to either droughts or flooding, could disrupt the projected growth in agricultural output. Political risks have Improvements to the fiscal position over the medium term will rely on the Government moderated but controlling non-priority spending, so strong public financial management and strong governance governance reforms will be key. The successful presidential and parliamentary elections will be needed… in December 2021 and April 2022 will help support further implementation of reforms. …and addressing These include building fiscal resilience, enhancing competitiveness and productivity binding constraints of the economy, ramping up quality investment, increasing exports and supporting will unlock growth tradeable sectors. As human capital will be key to sustained growth, the Government potential. will also need to improve its spending efficiency, including in its investments in social protection, education and health. Special Section: Data for Better Human Capital Evidence-based Despite mitigating measures, the pandemic has left its mark on the population’s human policies will be capital. School closures have taken their toll, especially on those households which needed to avoid could not access remote learning or were reliant on school meals. However, schools permanent losses to were closed for effectively four months accounting for the summer break during the human capital. lockdown and as such, out of school children continued to decline in 2020 but have risen in 2021. The Government will, nonetheless, need to start reversing the losses June 2022 Document of The World Bank 3 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update through evidence-based polices, especially in the areas of social protection, education, and health. This will require a stronger emphasis on data collection, and especially the systemic monitoring and evaluation of service delivery performance, with indicators widely accessible to policy makers, ideally in real time. COVID-19 has Although data collection in these three sectors is improving, public policy has traditionally prompted The relied on data collected for specific purposes, using cumbersome collection methods Gambia to look and leading to insufficiently detailed data for meaningful inferences about individual beyond traditional groups or sub-populations. During the pandemic, the Government has experimented data collection and with private sources of data, such as mobile phone records, as well as making effective use. use of high-frequency phone surveys to monitor the impact of the pandemic in real time and calibrate its COVID-19 response. This could offer a way to develop more effective and efficient policies to sustain the country’s recovery. Scarce social Social protection remains in its infancy in The Gambia, with only 6.1 percent of the protection data has population receiving any social protection benefits in 2016. There have been several hampered effective attempts to collect data on programs but no systematic data gathering. Programs remain policy making and fragmented and lessons have not been learned because of shortcomings in monitoring service delivery. and evaluation. Lack of data led to an inefficient COVID-19 response, as there was no means of identifying the poor, meaning cash assistance was given out on a near universal basis. Some households may have received assistance from multiple sources, while others were left out altogether. This raises the issue of inequitable access and coverage, and reinforces the need for regular data, and robust monitoring and evaluation to resolve such service delivery challenges. New data systems The Government has created the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare to can improve support social welfare, supported by the creation of the National Social Protection targeting but only Secretariat in 2020. The new Social Registry will provide socio-economic data on all if used and re-used households to identify suitable recipients and record what benefits have been received. effectively. To build on these developments the Government should: Invest in regular data collection on social programs against common metrics; ensure that data are used effectively and efficiently; support the re-use of data to support multiple development objectives; enact robust data protection and privacy legislation; instill a monitoring and evaluation culture across the sector; and create data linkages across government entities (see Table 0 for elaborated policy options). Efforts to develop The strengthening of its education data systems means policy makers have access education data to more granular data which they are already using to target interventions to where collection system are they are most needed. For instance, they have helped improve access to education paying off in service through school building programs, and provided the evidence to eliminate school fees, delivery. improving enrolment rates. However, household surveys are not frequent enough to support policy development and datasets remain only partially integrated. Improving Although service delivery indicators show The Gambia performs relatively well on the educational availability of inputs and teaching staff, educational outcomes remain poor, and even outcomes will qualified teachers lack the skills and knowledge they need. Data gaps make it hard to require addressing assess the effectiveness of vocational education, while schools and communities make data gaps and only limited use of the available information. To address these gaps the country should: Improve students’ learning data to align with international measures; use learning Document of The World Bank June 2022 4 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update encouraging the data to improve educational quality; make greater efforts to integrate additional data wider use of data. sources; collect better data on youth employment and skills; and devote more resources to distributing data for the greatest impact. Increasingly Data sources abound in the health sector as The Gambia begins to transition from integrated health paper-based records to more integrated datasets. The use of results-based financing data will help The (RBF) mechanisms has improved outcomes and provided useful data on the quality Gambia meet its goal of care. Data have underscored the importance of primary health care as the country of quality universal moves towards universal coverage and put RBF on a sustainable footing. health coverage. Building on digital The Ministry of Health is in the process of establishing more electronic records data developments including an electronic Civil Registry and Vital Statistics (eCRVS) system, starting with will start to provide issuing everyone with a birth certificate, and a national health insurance card. To build integrated health on these efforts, the Government should: link the eCRVS and NHIS systems to other data to support government systems; improve data quality and digitize the data sources needed to effective policies. provide monitoring and evaluation; and make better use of household survey data to strengthen service delivery. Integrated data To sum up, a more integrated approach to data collection, storage and use is needed management would for effective policy making across the three sectors as a first critical step to reverse support human the pandemic-driven loss to human capital accumulation. Furthermore, improving capital and service data management is an essential building block to support The Gambia’s progress in delivery. providing basic services to its citizens (i.e., improving access, coverage and quality) across the three sectors and achieving its Sustainable Development Goals. Table 0: The Gambia – Policy options to improve data for better human capital Policy Options Time Horizon Responsible Agency Social protection Invest in regular data collection on social protection programs and prepare an annual report on the state of social protection to promote efficiency against a common set of metrics including target group, targeting method, coverage, benefit provided, etc. Analyze data on programs collected annually from stakeholders to make evidence-based recommendations such as to ascertain which beneficiaries or regions are under-served, for instance, for future programming. Put in place a clear set of procedures, templates, and service standards for efficiently ST NSPS responding to Social Registry data requests. Introduce a national social protection M&E framework that aggregates programs’ indi- vidual outputs and outcomes, showing progress towards national goals, including service delivery, as well as supporting impact assessment. Build capacity in the sector for rigorous data analytics, reporting, dissemination, and usage. Allow use of Social Registry data for multiple, diverse programs to reap economies of NSPS and MOFEA scale in prioritizing beneficiaries. Allocate budget for the update of Social Registry. Enact the Data Protection and Privacy law to ensure responsible use of Social Registry NA, MOICI and data. MT NSPS Create data linkages between Social Registry, CRVS and IHS for efficient updating of NSPS, MOH and household data across all systems that can inform prioritization of programs and confer- GBoS ring of other services. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 5 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Education Improve learning data to align with international proficiency measures and support teach- ing and learning. Use learning data to improve quality and ensure the education system is relevant to labor MOBSE market needs, for example, by providing targeted pedagogical and competency skills development to teachers, and data-informed remediation support to students at various MT levels. Link data on school availability, supplies, and infrastructure to exam results and teacher allocation data to provide a full picture of school and student performance as well as with MOBSE and GBOS IHS to help understand household-level factors which affect the education sector. Collect more and better data on youth employment and skills development such as the programs on offer and gaps in provision, labor market demand, the profile of young ST MOHERST people searching for work, and information on school-to-work transitions, to better invest limited resources. Make education data available at the school level, and publicly, to empower communities MT MOBSE to hold schools and authorities accountable with a view to improving learning outcomes. Health Link the eCRVS and NHIS information systems to other government information sys- tems to improve the accuracy of household identification and reduce burden on public to MOH and other MDAs provide verified identities every time they access services. Improve the quality of and digitize the sources of data required for M&E in the health MT MOH sector to help quicker detection of emerging health threats and changing health trends. Improve the availability of adolescent reproductive health commodities and qualified health workers at the community level for adolescent-friendly services using DHS and MOH and GBoS IHS data. Legend: Key (available in Acronyms and Abbreviations, listed below otherwise): ST: Short term – 6 months MDAs – Ministries, Departments and Agencies MT: Medium term – 6-24 months NA – National Assembly Document of The World Bank June 2022 6 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update A. Recent Developments Like most of the world, The Gambia’s economy was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but has since begun to recover. Despite a sharp contraction in international travel, the country performed better initially than similarly tourism-dependent peers, cushioned by high official remittances and agricultural growth, although its subsequent recovery has been more gradual. The fiscal and current account deficits have begun to widen as the Government sought to kickstart the economy and invest in its infrastructure, but public debt has declined relative to GDP and the maturity profile of domestic debt has slightly improved. Inflation has begun to pick up again after cooling in 2020, with global drivers compounded by internal bottlenecks and recovering consumer demand. Lockdown measures initially caused widespread job losses and high levels of food insecurity, but pandemic-related support measures have helped support the poorest households and poverty levels are expected to fall after rising in 2020. However, rising food prices and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine will hit the poorest households and increase poverty rates again, especially in urban areas. 1. Real Sector Despite a sharp In 2020, The Gambia’s real GDP remained broadly stagnant, growing by a modest 0.6 drop in the tourism percent compared to a 6.7 percent average growth during 2018–2019. However, The sector during Gambia’s economic performance was better than the average for the Sub-Saharan Africa 2020, the economy (SSA) region, which saw real GDP fall by an average of 1.7 percent. By comparison, performed better emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) contracted by 2.0 percent on than the region average and tourism-dependent economies by 11.0 percent (IMF 2022) (Figure 1). and comparable However, The Gambia’s real GDP per capita contracted by 2.7 percent in 2020 after economies. three consecutive years of steady growth. This has contributed to an increase in the poverty rate1 from 8.4 percent in 2019 to 9.2 percent in 2020 with an additional 25,000 individuals (nearly 1 percent of the population) being pushed into extreme poverty (World Bank 2021a; see Poverty: Patterns and Trends). Private consumption On the demand side, private consumption contracted by 1.2 percent in 2020 following and exports dipped a 4 percent increase in 2019. A sharp increase in remittances was not enough to offset with investment the dip in private consumption because of the effect of the pandemic-induced slump continuing to drive in economic activity on household incomes. Exports fell by 50 percent, the second growth… consecutive year of decline. This was mainly due to the sharp drop in tourist arrivals owing to the halting of international travel. Imports showed strong growth fueled by the need for essential medical supplies to combat the pandemic, and inputs for the construction sector which was a key growth driver. Accordingly, investment grew by 44 percent in 2020, with private investment increasing by 34 percent. …while strong On the supply side, the agriculture sector remained buoyant thanks to a spell of good growth in agriculture rains and timely supplies of inputs to farmers. The sector grew by 10.6 percent in 2020 and construction after a contraction of 0.1 percent in 2019. Industry grew at a robust pace of 8.2 percent sectors cushioned in 2020. This was driven by strong activity in the remittance-financed construction the downturn in sector. The biggest drag on the economy was from the services sector. In 2020, tourist tourism. arrivals totaled 89,233, compared with 235,710 in 2019—a precipitous decline of 62.1 percent. Despite the reopening of air space in October 2020, tourists shied away due to recurring waves of infections, slow vaccination programs, vaccine-resistant variants, and stringent re-entry requirements in the target markets (notably the United Kingdom and Europe). 1 Using the international poverty rate (US$1.9 in 2011 Purchasing power parity - PPP). June 2022 Document of The World Bank 7 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update The economy has Real GDP growth was 4.3 percent in 2021 (1.3 percent in per capita terms), according started recovering in to provisional estimates by the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), exceeding the 2021... potential growth rate of 3.9 percent but lower than the pre-pandemic growth rate of 6.7 percent.2 Private consumption continued to grow, supported by sustained remittance inflows, as is public investment, backed by rapidly implemented infrastructure projects, while net exports decreased (Figure 4). Although The Gambia’s economic recovery was in line with the SSA average, it was below the average for EMDEs and tourism- dependent economies (Figure 1). …as the country Since the relaxation of containment measures in October 2020, The Gambia has remained open undergone three further COVID-19 waves (Figure 2).3 However, the Government did in 2021, despite not reimpose lockdowns and instead relied on mandating masks, expanding testing, recurring waves of and accelerating vaccinations. 4 The Delta and Omicron waves did put undue pressure infections. on the health infrastructure of the country. Nevertheless, these waves have had a more muted impact on economic activity than the first. Progress with vaccination has been slower than anticipated, however, with 13.2 percent of the population fully vaccinated as of May 5, 2022 (Figure 3). 5 This has been partly due to vaccine hesitancy, but the Government is engaging with communities to generate vaccination demand. Successful deployment of vaccines will be critical to accelerating socio-economic recovery in The Gambia. Fisheries helped On the supply side, the agriculture sector stayed in positive territory, driven entirely agriculture to grow. by the strong performance of fishing and aquaculture which grew by 20.8 percent in 2021 compared to 11.7 percent in 2020. Agriculture grew by 4.7 percent in 2021 after growth of 10.6 percent in 2020. Livestock contracted by 9.6 percent and logging by 4.3 percent in 2021, and gross value added for crops also decreased by 9.1 percent due to lower cereal output. Cereal production was in line with the average for 2015–2019 (FAO 2022) especially for maize and paddy as the cropping season suffered from diminished and erratic rains. Strong remittances Industry, which comprises 18.4 percent of GDP (Figure 5), grew robustly by 10.4 helped to sustain percent in 2021. This was driven by strong activity in the construction sector which was robust activity in the boosted by strong inflows of private remittances. Several public investment projects construction sector. continued to support this growth and drove the need for imported inputs. These include roads, bridges, and projects related to the 2022 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, which has six priority areas including the modernization of Banjul airport. Moreover, domestic credit to construction sector also rebounded strongly 2 The provisional growth estimate is also below the WB/IMF staff estimate of 5.6 percent. The final estimate will be published in a year’s time. 3 First wave: The initial confirmed cases were few and mainly imported (25 confirmed cases during March to May 2020) but subse- quently The Gambia experienced local transmission with an average of 100 confirmed cases a day between July and August 2020. Second wave: The infection rate increased in early 2021 amid a global surge in COVID-19 cases and loose adherence to prescribed protocols. Third wave: Following regional trends, infections involving the Delta variant started increasing in early July 2021. Fourth wave: In line with the global Omicron surge, daily cases rose in early 2022. The Gambia has recorded 11,995 confirmed cases with 365 deaths as of May 5, 2022. 4 The Government launched a mass vaccination campaign in March 2021 supported by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative and the World Bank. The Gambia also received vaccine donations from its bilateral partners: Senegal, the United States, and France. 5 The Gambia plans to provide free vaccinations to 70 percent of its population by end-2022. In February 2022, The Gambia inau- gurated ultracold facility that is expected to allow access to various vaccine brands and help bolster the vaccination rate. Document of The World Bank June 2022 8 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update (see Monetary Policy and Inflation), which is likely to support ongoing infrastructure development ahead of the OIC summit. The services The services sector, which comprises over half of the economy (by value added), grew sector rebounded by 1.9 percent after a steep decline of 5 percent in 2020 (Figure 6). 6 Tourism activity as tourism started picked up during April–June 2021 ahead of the 2021/22 season 7 and during October– recovering. December 2021, when the season kicked off, despite the prevalence of the Omicron variant in key markets as the re-entry requirements were eased and adequate vaccination coverage largely dispelled infection fears in those markets.8, 9 Arrivals reached 102,460 during 2021 which represents an increase of 14.8 percent over 2020. Although these numbers show a 56.5 percent decline compared to the pre-pandemic 2019 levels, the improvement over 2020 underpins hopes for a full tourism recovery in the near term. Moreover, the demographic composition changed in 2021: about two-thirds of tourists came from non-traditional markets (mainly Gambian expats and Africans) compared to around two-fifths in 2019 (Figure 7). Remittances showed Remittances 10 increased to US$590 million in 2020 (32.2 percent of GDP), more than strong and sustained double the levels in 2019 (Figure 8). This considerable rise helped to boost foreign growth. exchange earnings, partially offsetting the depreciatory pressure on the Gambian dalasi (GMD). Remittances continued to grow strongly in 2021 and supported a recovery in private consumption (Figure 9). They reached US$777 million in 2021 (38 percent of GDP), a 31.7 percent increase over 2020. This can partly be explained by remittances being re-routed through formal channels aided by the increase in money transfer operators in The Gambia rather than an actual increase in remittances (Avdiu and Meyer 2021). Household survey data corroborate this potential explanation: between March and August 2020, 92 percent of households reported a decline in international remittances. In December 2021, 57 percent of households receiving remittances still reported a drop (GBoS 2021; see also Poverty: Patterns and Trends). Quarterly The Central Bank of Gambia’s (CBG) quarterly Composite Index of Economic indicators showed Activity (CIEA) showed a sharp erosion in business confidence in Q2 and Q3 of 2020 improvement in owing to the pandemic. However, with progress in vaccine development and news business sentiments. about vaccine deployment in the last quarter of 2020, business confidence rose slightly: Most businesses surveyed were optimistic about the Gambian economy’s prospects in the near term in Q4 2020. Business confidence further improved for July and August 2021 owing to expectations of improved economic performance on the back of the vaccine rollout. However, business sentiments for Q4 2021 were not as optimistic due to concerns about new COVID-19 variants and the uncertainty associated with the December presidential election. Nonetheless, successful elections, together with higher expected sales and profitability in Q1 2022, sustained confidence in business activity (CBG 2022). 6 The sector last contracted during 2015–2016 mainly due to the Ebola crisis in SSA and political instability in The Gambia. 7 The tourism season in The Gambia starts in October and extends to March of the following year. 8 For example, the UK upgraded The Gambia to non-red (previously amber) list on October 3, 2021 meaning that no quarantine/ pre-departure COVID-19 test is required for fully vaccinated travelers upon return from The Gambia. Moreover, 66 percent of the population in UK were fully vaccinated as of end-September 2021. 9 In addition, just before the start of the tourism season in October 2021, the Government waived the requirement for a pre-depar- ture COVID-19 test for fully vaccinated passengers. 10 This consists of all remittance inflows to the balance of payments, including both consumption and investment. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 9 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 1: Real GDP growth: The Gambia versus rest of the world Percent 6.8 6.0 4.3 4.3 0.6 -1.7 -2.0 -11.0 2020 2021 Gambia, The Sub-Saharan Africa Emerging Markets and Developing Economies Tourism-dependent Economies Source: Staff calculations based on GBoS and IMF World Economic Outlook data. Figure 2: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 Figure 3: Share of people vaccinated against cases: The Gambia versus peers COVID-19 cases: The Gambia versus peers 7-day rolling average 7-day rolling average 1000 50% 800 40% 600 30% 400 20% 200 10% 0 0% Mar 7, 2020 Nov 16, 2020 Jun 4, 2021 May 4, 2022 Dec 13, 2020 Jun 4, 2021 Sep 12, 2021 Dec 21, 2021 May 4, 2022 Source: Johns Hopkins University CCCSE COVID-19 data. Source: Official data collated by Our World in Data. Figure 4: Point contribution to real GDP growth, Figure 5: Contribution to GDP by sector aggregate demand Percent Percent 20.0 10.0 100.0 10.0 5.0 80.0 0.0 0.0 60.0 -10.0 -5.0 40.0 -20.0 -10.0 20.0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 0.0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Household consumption Government consumption Gross fixed capital formation Net exports Real GDP growth (RHS) Agriculture Industry Services Document of The World Bank June 2022 10 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 6: Quarterly tourist arrivals and growth Figure 7: Composition of tourists Left axis: thousands of people, right axis: percent thousands of people 100 100 100 80 50 80 60 50 60 40 20 -50 40 0 -100 20 Q1-2019 Q2-2019 Q3-2019 Q4-2019 Q1-2020 Q2-2020 Q3-2020 Q4-2020 Q1-2021 Q2-2021 Q3-2021 Q4-2021 0 Q1-2017 Q2-2017 Q3-2017 Q4-2017 Q1-2018 Q2-2018 Q3-2018 Q4-2018 Q1-2019 Q2-2019 Q3-2019 Q4-2019 Q1-2020 Q2-2020 Q3-2020 Q4-2020 Q1-2021 Q2-2021 Q3-2021 Q4-2021 Air charted tourist arrivals Year on year change (RHS) Non-Traditional Traditional Figure 8: Remittance inflows, annual Figure 9: Monthly remittance inflows million USD million USD 1000 100 800 80 60 600 40 400 20 200 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 0 2018 2019 2020 2021 2020 2021 Source: Staff calculations based on CBG and GBoS data. 2. Fiscal and Debt Dynamics The Gambia The fiscal deficit (including grants) was 2.2 percent of GDP in 2020 (Error! Reference maintained fiscal source not found.)—0.4 percentage points below the figure in 2019. The primary discipline in 2020 surplus improved from 0.6 percent of GDP to 1.0 percent. This fiscal adjustment in a despite pandemic- pandemic year was due in part to higher grants supporting the Government’s COVID-19 related pressures. response. Tax revenues remained at 11.1 percent of GDP¬¬ despite dismal economic activity and tax relief measures. In addition to donor support, the Government was able to spend on pandemic-related priorities by reallocating funds from lower-priority areas. It also repaid state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) debt on their behalf. However, capital expenditure declined due to pandemic-induced implementation challenges. The fiscal deficit was financed by the IMF Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and external project disbursements, while domestic borrowing increased slightly from 0.5 percent of GDP to 0.8 percent. However, 2021 The fiscal deficit more than doubled in 2021 to 4.6 percent of GDP (a primary saw the fiscal deficit of 1.6 percent of GDP). Revenues, including grants, decreased by 6.2 percent June 2022 Document of The World Bank 11 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update deficit rising as the of GDP compared with 2020 because of a large fall in budget and project grants. 11 Government sought Total expenditure also decreased by 3.7 percent of GDP. Within expenditure, recurrent to kickstart the spending decreased as pandemic-related fiscal support was withdrawn, while capital economy. expenditure barely maintained the previous year’s level. Tax collection by the Taxes grew by 4.9 percent in 2021 compared with 3.6 percent in 2020. Nonetheless, tax Gambia Revenue collection fell short of the budgeted target by 4.8 percent 12 and declined by 0.7 percent Authority (GRA) has relative to GDP (Table 2). Domestic taxes on goods and services contributed to 44 grown modestly. percent of the total while almost one-third came from direct taxes and one-fourth from international taxes. A strong performance in collecting tax arrears as relief measures expired 13 and improved tax compliance by SOEs supported overall collection rates. However, the slow recovery of economic activity in early 2021, 14 the persistent decline in merchandise trade, and rising freight costs 15 hindered the GRA from meeting the collection target. Furthermore, some of the revenue drivers in 2020 such as policy changes to import pricing 16 and strong telecom revenues created a low base effect. Tax exemptions Tax exemptions during 2021 amounted to GMD2,062 million, 29.4 percent less than declined but remain those granted in last year. About 40 percent of these waivers were recommended on sizeable. discretionary grounds. Had these discretionary exemptions not been granted, this alone would have reduced the fiscal deficit by 0.8 percent of GDP. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Gambian economy has a limited tax base, driven by largely subsistence- based agriculture (below the level for tax liability) and by tourism, with no active tax strategy developed along the tourism value chain (World Bank 2020b). Non-tax revenues Following a good performance in 2020, non-tax revenues increased by one-third in keep increasing. 2021. This was attributable to continued sales of assets authorized by the Janneh Commission. 17 One-off settlement payments of GMD1.4 billion (1.3 percent of GDP) received from British Petroleum’s withdrawal of exploration licenses also supported overall non-tax receipts (IMF 2021). Recurrent Current expenditure decreased by 3 percent of GDP during 2021 compared to 2020 expenditure declined (Table 3). This decline was due to lower transfers as the Government did not provide any as pandemic-related cash support/food aid during 2021 as it did in the pandemic year. 18 Current spending, spending was phased however, included GMD201 million worth of fertilizer subsidies (0.2 percent of out… GDP) to the groundnut SOE—the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Corporation (NFSPMC). This government support is in line with historical trends and generates fiscal cost, in a context of limited fiscal space and urgent priority spending 11 The disbursement of US$20 million (GMD1 billion) in World Bank budget support originally projected for Q2 was delayed to next year. Similarly, part of the European Union budget support grant of EUR10.8 million (GMD650 million) has been cancelled. These delays/cancellations happened as the required reforms to trigger the disbursements were not completed by the authorities. 12 The budgeted target for tax collection in 2021 was GMD11.4 billion. 13 Including the tax moratorium extended to some state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and businesses in 2020. 14 Impacting domestic tax collection. 15 Both factors impacted tax receipts from international trade and transactions (customs and excise). 16 The revision of reference prices of imports, combined with the adoption of transactional-value-based customs and excise levies, in early 2020 increased customs revenue, despite a decline in import volumes caused by the pandemic. 17 The Government’s White Paper summarizing the findings of the Janneh Commission of Enquiry was published in September 2019. The paper detailed the scale of stolen assets and illegally acquired proceeds by the former President and his close associates (IMF 2020). 18 The Government undertook budgetary spending equivalent to 3.6 percent of GDP in 2020 on containment measures and to support households, firms, SOEs, and government entities (IMF 2021). Document of The World Bank June 2022 12 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update needs which ought to be data-driven and better targeted (see Special Section for details). These transfers could be avoided through a combination of policy and institutional reforms of the SOE sector as well as of the sectors they operate in (World Bank 2022b). Table 1: Summary of fiscal operations GMD million Percent of GDP 2019 2020 2021 2019 2020 2021 Total revenue and grants 19,222 21,446 17,649 21.2 23 16.8 Domestic revenue 12,737 13,539 15,001 14.0 14.5 14.3 Tax revenue 9,962 10,326 10,833 11.0 11.1 10.3 Non-tax revenue 2,775 3,213 4,168 3.1 3.4 4.0 Grants 6,485 7,907 2,648 7.1 8.5 2.5 Budget support 2,790 4,604 722 3.1 4.9 0.7 Project 3,695 3,303 1,926 4.1 3.5 1.8 of which: COVID-19 assistance - 459 241 … 0.5 0.2 Total expenditures 21,552 23,477 22,496 23.7 25.2 21.4 Current 13,287 16,877 15,959 14.6 18.1 15.2 of which: Interest 2,843 2,967 3,180 3.1 3.2 3.0 Capital 8,265 6,600 6,537 9.1 7.1 6.2 Fiscal balance -2,330 -2,031 -4,847 -2.6 -2.2 -4.6 Deficit financing Net acquisition of financial assets -329 -180 -180 -0.4 -0.2 -0.2 Net incurrence of liabilities 2,866 1,595 5,092 3.2 1.7 4.9 Domestic 452 741 4,553 0.5 0.8 4.3 Of which: Net borrowing 1,063 112 2,691 1.2 0.1 2.6 Of which: RCF 1,057 2,205 0.0 1.1 2.1 External 2,414 854 539 2.7 0.9 0.5 Exceptional financing (DSSI) 0 206 0 0.0 0.2 0.0 Statistical discrepancy -207 409 -65 -0.2 0.4 -0.1 Gross financing needs 1/ 21,326 22,237 27,725 23.5 23.8 26.4 Memorandum items: Tax exemptions 2,522 2,920 2,062 2.8 3.1 2.0 GDP (nominal) 90,794 93,330 104,947 Source: Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, IMF, and World Bank staff calculations. Note: 1/ Gross financing needs are the sum of the primary deficit, debt service on medium- to long-term debt, and outstanding short- term debt of previous year. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 13 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update … while On the one hand, externally financed capital expenditure declined by 2 percent of domestically funded GDP in 2021 relative to last year, despite the reopening of the economy, as capacity capital spending challenges hampered project implementation. On the other hand, locally financed accelerated. project execution reached a record level of GMD3.2 billion. Of this, GMD2.2 billion was spent on roads and bridges, exhausting the revised budget 19 for the year (MOFEA 2021a). The Government In July 2021, Parliament approved a supplementary appropriation (SAP) totaling requested a GMD1.77 billion (1.7 percent of GDP) to support the preparation for the presidential supplementary and parliamentary elections, purchases of ambulances, road construction, and anti-drug budget. enforcement amid increasing illegal drug seizures (IMF 2021). Table 2: Gambia Revenue Authority tax collection GMD million Percent of GDP 2019 2020 2021 2019 2020 2021 Taxes on income, profits, and capital gains 2,625 2,803 3,254 2.9 3.0 3.0 Indirect taxes 7,337 7,522 7,579 8.1 8.0 7.1 Domestic taxes on goods and services 4,840 4,934 4,776 5.3 5.2 4.5 Taxes on international trade and transactions 2,497 2,588 2,803 2.8 2.7 2.6 Total taxes 9,962 10,325 10,833 11.0 11.0 10.1 Source: Gambia Revenue Authority, IMF, and World Bank staff calculations. Domestic borrowing Amid shortfalls in tax revenue and budget grants, strict enforcement of cash primarily financed management20 to align spending with available resources helped limit domestic the fiscal deficit. borrowing in the first half of 2021. However, spending pressures towards the end of the year (mainly due to elections) compounded liquidity constraints and led to net domestic borrowing (NDB) of GMD2.7 billion (2.6 percent of GDP).21 Moreover, the CBG on-lent budget disbursements under the IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) worth US$50 million (2.1 percent of GDP) 22. Public debt declined The ratio of public debt to GDP is estimated at 83.8 percent of GDP as of end- relative to GDP. 2021—a decline of 2.1 percentage points against end-2020 (Figure 10). 23 Nearly two-thirds of the medium- and long-term external debt is owed to multilateral and plurilateral creditors, in equal proportions. Non-Paris Club creditors hold the bulk of the debt owed to bilateral creditors; Paris Club debt represents only 0.02 percent of the external debt. The Gambia owes debt to one private creditor, namely M.A. Kharafi and Sons, and has contracted a short-term credit facility with the International Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC). 19 The revised budget comprises approved (original) and supplementary budget estimates. Both estimates are to be approved by the legislature – the National Assembly in this case. 20 Implemented through monthly Cash Management Committee meetings and cash forecasts by the Cash Management Unit (CMU) within the Accountant General Department. 21 This is more than double the NDB ceiling of 1.2 percent under the ongoing IMF ECF program. 22 In January, May, and November of 2021. 23 Public debt stood at 78.4 percent of GDP at end-September 2021 (MOFEA 2021b). Document of The World Bank June 2022 14 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Table 3: Analysis of spending GMD million Percent of GDP 2019 2020 2021 2019 2020 2021 Total expenditures 21,552 23,477 22,496 23.7 25.2 21.4 Current 13,287 16,877 15,959 14.6 18.1 15.2 Personnel emoluments 3,955 4,049 4,593 4.4 4.3 4.4 Other charges 9,332 12,828 11,366 10.3 13.7 10.8 Goods and services 3,179 3,850 3,985 3.5 4.1 3.8 Subsidies and transfers 3,310 6,011 4,201 3.6 6.4 4.0 Interest 2,843 2,967 3,180 3.1 3.2 3.0 External 371 548 709 0.4 0.6 0.7 Domestic 2,472 2,419 2,470 2.7 2.6 2.4 Capital 8,265 6,600 6,537 9.1 7.1 6.2 Externally financed 7,584 4,837 3,363 8.4 5.2 3.2 Gambia local fund 681 1,763 3,174 0.8 1.9 3.0 Source: Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, IMF, and World Bank staff calculations. The domestic debt As of end-September 2021, 54.7 percent of domestic debt was in the form of Treasury profile has improved. bills, slightly down from 56 percent at end-2020. The Government continued to extend the maturity profile of domestic debt in 2021, in line with its Medium-term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS) guidelines. It issued three-year bonds at a fixed coupon rate and introduced a five-year bond in September 2021. 24 The Government also published an annual borrowing plan (ABP) in February 2021 whose execution was within parameters. 25 Its implementation is facilitated by monthly issuance calendars published on the websites of both the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (MOFEA) and the CBG and is supervised by a technical committee. This practice is ongoing with the ABP for 2022 and monthly issuance calendars published up till May 2022. The Gambia did not The Gambia benefited from debt service suspension of US$4 million (0.2 percent of request Debt Service GDP) under the DSSI in 2020. While the Government requested further relief for H1- Suspension Initiative 2021, it did not request it for H2-2021, given that it has already received substantial debt (DSSI) relief for the relief through 2024 from the bilateral creditors in the 2019 agreement. 26 The extension second half of 2021. of the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) relief through October 2021 also reduced the external debt service owed to IMF by SDR 1.9 million. 27 24 Together, the Government raised GMD4.3 billion in 2021 through five issuances. 25 Deviation between domestic debt issuance and annual borrowing plan in 2021 was -4 percent. 26 Debt service from these creditors amounting to US$129 million (or 7 percent of 2019 GDP) between 2020 and 2024 has already been deferred. 27 The debt service relief was provided for two years, from April 2020 through April 2022. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 15 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 10: Trends in public debt Percent of GDP External debt Domestic debt Total debt 100 80 60 40 20 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Source: MOFEA, IMF, and World Bank staff calculations. 3. Balance of Payments The Gambia’s The current account deficit (including official transfers) declined from US$111 million current account (6.1 percent of GDP) in 2019 to US$57.9 million (3.2 percent of GDP) in 2020 (Table deficit declined in 4). This improvement came as record remittances and massive donor support in the 2020…. aftermath of the pandemic almost balanced out the merchandise trade deficit. Exports contracted significantly while imports stayed the same. 28 A pandemic-induced slowdown in project execution coupled with significantly slower foreign direct investment (FDI) meant a deterioration in the financial account. However, capital transfers moderated some of this decline and improved the country’s external position. Gross international reserves stood at US$352 million (or 5.3 months of imports) as of end-2020. …but widened in The deficit expanded to US$160.1 million (7.9 percent of GDP) in 2021 as the economy 2021. reopened, remittance-driven construction activities continued, and import-intensive infrastructure project implementation accelerated. The trade deficit The Gambia has a narrow goods export base dominated by fish and crustaceans, soared as imports groundnuts, cashews, and oil seeds (GBoS 2020). Its services exports are dominated by expanded while travel (tourism), which is highly seasonal. Exports of goods continued to decline for the exports contracted. second consecutive year, to 3.6 percent of GDP in 2021. Meanwhile, imports increased to 32.8 percent of GDP, resulting in a larger trade deficit than last year. This widening trade deficit reflects the revival of domestic demand as containment measures were lifted in October 2020. On the services side, exports revived by 0.6 percent of GDP, supported by the gradual recovery of tourism receipts. Service imports increased by 0.2 percent of GDP, leading to a services deficit of 1.1 percent relative to GDP in 2021 compared to 1.5 percent in the previous year. Current transfers Budget support grants (official transfers) fell to almost one-fifth of their level in 2020 somewhat as donor support was phased out and major commitments were postponed to next maintained their year (see Fiscal and Debt Dynamics). Remittances reached another record high in 2021, level. amounting to 22.6 percent of GDP (see Real Sector for details).29 These alone covered 75 percent of the trade deficit (Figure 11). 28 To support COVID-19 containment efforts and ensure food security and continuity of other essential supplies. 29 This refers to the current transfer component of remittances and excludes investment related inflows. Document of The World Bank June 2022 16 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 11: Composition of current account balance Percent of GDP Current transfers 40.0 0.0 (incl. remittances) 20.0 -2.0 Income account -4.0 0.0 Trade of services -6.0 -20.0 -8.0 Trade of goods -40.0 -10.0 2019 2020 2021 1/ Current account (RHS) Source: CBG, IMF, and World Bank staff calculations. Note: 1/ Preliminary data subject to revision. The increase in The capital account increased by 55 percent to US$103.6 million in 2021 compared financial flows offset to the previous year. Moreover, the financial account improved considerably, reaching the current account US$225 million, supported by the substantial flow of FDI. This was partly spurred deficit and boosted by private inflows from the Gambian diaspora investing in real estate. These strong reserves. flows more than adequately covered the widening current account deficit, bolstering international reserves to 6 months of import coverage.30 30 In months of next year’s imports of goods and services. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 17 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Table 4: Balance of payments summary US$ million Percent of GDP 2019 2020 2021 1/ 2019 2020 2021 1/ 1. Current account A. Goods (net) -452.7 -495.5 -595.2 -25.1 -27.4 -29.3 Exports, f.o.b. 142.4 69.5 72.7 7.9 3.8 3.6 Imports, f.o.b. -595.1 -565.0 -667.9 -33.0 -31.2 -32.8 B. Services (net) 116.2 -26.5 -22.1 6.4 -1.5 -1.1 Services exports 226.3 82.6 105.3 12.5 4.6 5.2 of which: Travel income 181.3 46.6 53.6 10.0 2.6 2.6 Services imports -110.1 -109.1 -127.4 -6.1 -6.0 -6.3 C. Income (net) -30.0 -31.1 -32.1 -1.7 -1.7 -1.6 Income credits 2.3 2.4 2.5 0.1 0.1 0.1 Income debits -32.4 -33.5 -34.6 -1.8 -1.9 -1.7 D. Current transfers 255.5 495.2 489.3 14.1 27.4 24.1 Official transfers 55.8 82.7 16.2 3.1 4.6 0.8 Remittances 187.4 400.2 460.5 10.4 22.1 22.6 Other transfers 12.3 12.3 12.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 Current account (excl. official transfers) -166.8 -140.6 -176.3 -9.2 -7.8 -8.7 Current account (incl. official transfers) -111.0 -57.9 -160.1 -6.1 -3.2 -7.9 2. Capital and financial account E. Capital account 73.5 66.9 103.6 4.1 3.7 5.1 F. Financial accounts 110.2 66.2 225.0 6.1 3.7 11.1 Foreign direct investment 93.4 69.3 100.0 5.2 3.8 4.9 Portfolio investment 4.1 3.8 3.8 0.2 0.2 0.2 Other investment 12.8 -6.9 121.2 0.7 -0.4 6.0 3. Errors and omissions 1.6 30.9 -46.3 … … … Overall balance (1+2+3) 74.3 106.1 122.2 4.1 5.9 6.0 Financing Net international reserves (increase -) -74.3 -106.1 -122.2 Change in gross international reserves -68.0 -127.1 -178.3 Use of IMF resources (net) -6.3 23.7 44.5 Exceptional financing 2/ 0.0 8.4 5.6 Memorandum items Exports of goods and services (percent growth) … -58.7 17.0 Imports of goods and services (percent growth) … -4.4 18.0 Gross international reserves US$ million 225.0 352.1 530.4 Months of next year’s imports of goods and services 4.0 5.3 6.0 Source: CBG, IMF and World Bank staff calculations. Notes: 1/ Preliminary data subject to revision. 2/ Includes CCRT debt relief and DSSI. Document of The World Bank June 2022 18 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update The nominal The CBG’s exchange rate policy has been prudent, with a limited presence (usually on exchange rate the purchasing side) in the foreign exchange market. Donor support and the additional remained broadly Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation 31 facilitated the build-up of international stable, but the reserves to US$530.4 million at end-2021 and prevented undesirable exchange rate real exchange rate volatility. The dalasi depreciated slightly by 1.9 percent (y/y) against the US dollar in appreciated slightly. 2021 but weakened against other major currencies. 32 The real effective exchange rate depreciated in the wake of the pandemic but stabilized towards the end of 2020.33Strong private inflows (remittances and FDI), and a 16.6 percent (y/y) increase in the volume of net foreign exchange transactions during 2021 are expected to improve The Gambia’s competitiveness over time. 4. Monetary Policy and Inflation Inflation decelerated Pandemic-related falls in domestic demand led to a cooling in inflation in the latter half sharply in 2020 but of 2020. Annual inflation decelerated from 7.4 percent year-on-year (y/y) in January increased in 2021… 2020 to 5.7 percent in December 2020 (after falling to a low of 4.8 percent in July). In 2021, annual inflation began to pick up again, peaking at 8.2 percent in July and closing the year at 7.6 percent y/y (Figure 12). 34 This remains higher than the central bank’s medium-term target of 5 percent. Despite rising inflation, the output gap35 remained in negative territory following the economic slump in 2020 and implies that high inflation is mostly transitory and supply driven. Core inflation also rose in line with rising headline inflation. …on the back of The uptick in inflation was primarily driven by accelerating food prices due to higher surging food prices. domestic demand and supply chain constraints (CBG 2021a). Food inflation grew by 10 percent (y/y) in 2021—3 percentage points up from the rate in 2020. This is mostly imported inflation, The Gambia being a net food importer, and is affected by increase in global food and energy prices and fertilizer costs. Structural bottlenecks at the port of Banjul compounded the global logistical blockages and drove up food inflation (CBG 2021b). Non-food inflation also stood at 4.9 percent (y/y) in 2021, up slightly from 4.4 percent (y/y) in 2020. Although continued high food inflation will be putting pressure on households (see Poverty: Patterns and Trends), the rise in non-food inflation, though modest, may reflect an emerging recovery in demand. The CBG continued The central bank adopted an accommodative monetary policy stance in response to to maintain an the COVID-19 shock. The CBG had reduced its policy rate from 12.5 percent at end- accommodative 2019 to 10 percent by end-May 2020. It also reduced the reserve requirement from 15 monetary policy. percent to 13 percent, further advising banks to postpone dividend distributions. The CBG continued to maintain its appropriately accommodative stance in 2021, keeping the policy rate unchanged at 10 percent and the reserve requirement at 13 percent. As inflationary pressures built up in late 2021, the CBG reduced foreign exchange purchases 31 In August 2021, The Gambia received US$84.4 million (4.1 percent of GDP) as part of the SDR allocation injected by the IMF to boost global liquidity and support pandemic needs/post-pandemic recovery. 32 For instance, the dalasi depreciated by 12.7 percent y/y against the Swedish krone in 2021. 33 The 2021 IMF External Sector Assessment indicates that the real effective exchange rate was undervalued by 0–2.3 percent in 2020 and is broadly in line with fundamentals. Under the assumption of multilateral consistency, this assessment reflects the esti- mated deterioration in global factors being relatively sharper than the change in The Gambia-specific factors (IMF 2021). 34 Headline inflation continued to increase in 2022 and showed 7.8 percent (y/y) increase in January. 35 The output gap is the difference between actual GDP and potential GDP, to identify the country’s current economic position over the business cycle. A negative output gap may indicate a recession. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 19 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update and carried out reverse repos through sales of CBG bills, which helped reduce excess liquidity and moderate reserve money growth. Money supply Money supply continued to show strong growth in 2020 and stood at 22 percent y/y growth continued to at end-December 2020 (Figure 13). Broad money growth during most of 2020 was accelerate, boosted boosted by significant pandemic-related donor support and a rise in private foreign by rising net foreign inflows. Reserve money growth accelerated to 33.9 percent y/y at end-December 2020, assets. from 17.2 percent at end-December 2019. In 2021, reserve money continued to grow, showing 13.6 percent growth at end-December 2021. Broad money growth has also remained firm in 2021, increasing by 19.5 percent y/y at end-December 2021. Most of the increase in money supply has been due to significant increase in net foreign assets (NFAs) of the banking system. NFAs totaled GMD28.7 billion at end-December 2021, an increase of 18.7 percent y/y. Private sector credit Credit to the private sector grew strongly by 26.5 percent in 2021, compared to weak rebounded in 2021. growth of 0.7 percent in 2020. This strong rebound, though slightly below the pre- pandemic growth of 33.5 percent in 2019, indicates that a post-pandemic economic recovery is underway (Figure 14). There was significant variation across sectors, with credit to agriculture, tourism, and transport contracting in y/y terms. In contrast, loans to the construction sector (which accounted for one-third of total private sector credit in 2021) grew by a record 50.6 percent compared to 2020. Loans to the distributive trade (comprising one-fifth of total private sector credit in 2021) also grew by 12.9 percent in December 2021, reversing the negative trend exhibited for most of the year (Figure 15). 36 The financial Total assets amount to 85 percent GDP, with banks accounting for almost 90 percent sector is small, of these assets. The financial sector remains relatively stable with high capital levels of banking centric, and more than 20 percent and ample liquidity. Profitability which peaked in 2020, 37 is likely concentrated. to have declined in 2021 with lower returns on government papers and the imposition of a ceiling of 15 percent on lending rates. Because of the latter, intermediation, which was already low, is estimated to have declined further, with most banks reporting loan- to-deposit ratios barely reaching 20 percent in 2021. The credit to GDP ratio is among the lowest in the region at about 8 percent. Declining Negative real interest rates on government securities 38 reduced earnings from the bulk profitability of banks’ assets. Difficulties in shifting bank business models and heavy competition and funding for few creditworthy firms have affected profitability. These conditions are exacerbated concentration risks by the maximum lending rate. This ceiling may not cover high average costs of funding are of particular or high overheads for some banks, given riskier clientele. In fact, banks have reduced concern. lending given this guidance, curtailing most lending to riskier market segments, such as agriculture and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Meanwhile, high concentrations of Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) deposits in funding portfolios pose a systemic risk. Small banks are the most vulnerable to these issues. Some mitigation measures could include revisiting the lending rate guidance and enhancing the monitoring and regulation of large deposit exposures. 36 An increase in credit to the distributive trade signals its direct relationship to tourism activity, which rebounded during Q4 2021. 37 With a return on equity of close to 20 percent. 38 Average real interest rates on the 12-month Treasury bills during 2021 were -4.5 percent. Document of The World Bank June 2022 20 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 12: Inflation rate Figure 13: Money growth Percent Year-on-year, percent 12% 60% 10% 50% 8% 40% 6% 30% 4% 20% 2% 10% 2% 0% Jan-19 Apr-19 Jul-19 Oct-19 Apr-20 Jul-20 Oct-20 Apr-21 Jul-21 Oct-21 Jan-20 Jan-21 Jun-19 Dec-19 Dec-20 Mar-19 Sep-19 Mar-20 Jun-20 Sep-20 Mar-21 Jun-21 Dec-21 Sep-21 Headline inflation Food inflation Narrow Money Quasi-money Non food inflation Total Money Supply Figure 14: Private sector credit Figure 15: Change in loans by sub-sector, 2021 Left axis: millions of GMD, right axis: percent Year-on-year, percent 10,000 60 9,000 Manufacturing 50 8,000 Agriculture 7,000 40 Tourism 6,000 30 Transport 5,000 20 Distributive trade 4,000 Other financial institutions 3,000 10 2,000 Mining 0 Other unclassified loans 1,000 0 -10 Personal loans Jan-18 May-18 Sep-18 Jan-19 May-19 Sep-19 Jan-20 May-20 Sep-20 Jan-21 May-21 Sep-21 Fishing Construction Energy Loans to private sector Percent change, y/y (RHS) -150% -100% -50% 0% 50% 100% 150% 200% Source: Staff calculations based on CBG data. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 21 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update 5. Poverty: Patterns and Trends Nearly half of According to the 2015 national household survey, 48.6 percent of the population were the population in living below the national poverty line. 39 In the rural areas, where agriculture is the The Gambia were main source of livelihood, the poverty rate is highest—nearly 70 percent. Even though considered poor poverty rates are high in the interior, the greatest concentration of poverty is found in 2015, with the close to Banjul, especially in the local government area of Brikama. Rapid urbanization highest rates in rural due to high levels of rural-to-urban migration has led to concentrations of poor people areas. in congested urban areas, many of them young, competing for limited jobs and services. This raises concerns about increasing levels of urban poverty. Furthermore, 20.8 percent of the population are considered extreme poor40. COVID-19 is Projections using sectoral growth and household welfare data indicate that the estimated to have national poverty rate in 2020 increased to 50.2 percent. The spread of COVID-19 increased poverty in prompted a national health emergency. Social distancing measures reduced economic 2020 but it declined activity affecting household welfare in several ways. These included (i) a labor market following the contraction resulting in job losses; (ii) lower incomes, including labor and non-labor economic rebound in incomes such as remittances and private transfers; and (iii) worsening food insecurity 2021. driven by the combination of lower incomes and rising food prices. As the economy started to recover in 2021, poverty 41 is expected to have declined to 8.5 percent in 2021 and is estimated to decline further to 7.8 percent in 2022 reaching 6.2 percent by 2024 (World Bank 2022a).42, 43 In the absence of Between 2015 and 2019, increased economic activity (mainly in construction) and a COVID-19, poverty strong inflow of remittances is likely to have contributed to poverty reduction. However, in 2020 is likely to during this period, slow growth in the agricultural sector (0.6 percent compared to have declined but 11 percent in industry) is likely to have slowed its pace. As such, had there been no only marginally. pandemic, poverty would have declined by only 2 percentage points in 2020 (Figure 16). 44 Low growth in agriculture is further reflected in the much slower pace of poverty reduction in rural areas (less than 2 percentage points) than in urban areas. Driven by the The effect of the pandemic is likely to have been uneven geographically. In urban areas, pandemic, poverty poverty is estimated to have increased by 5.1 percentage points while it declined by 2.9 in 2020 is expected percentage points in rural areas (Figure 16). More stringent lockdown measures and to have increased in large contractions in the services sector (especially tourism) may have resulted in the urban areas. large increase in poverty in urban areas. In rural areas, on the other hand, good rains supported a rebound in agriculture in 2020 from a contraction a year earlier. Households at The COVID-19 pandemic affected consumption levels across the welfare distribution. the top of the Richer households experienced a larger contraction in consumption than poorer welfare distribution households (Figure 17). Without COVID-19, consumption levels for the richest 39 The national poverty line was estimated at GMD1,503 per person per month. In 2015, 10.3 percent of the population lived below the international poverty line of US$1.9 a day in 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, or GMD26.2 per person per day. A new household survey was conducted in 2020/21. However, the poverty numbers are yet to be finalized. 40 Extreme poor are those who are unable to meet basic food requirements. 41 Using the international poverty rate ($1.9 in 2011 PPP). 42 These latest estimates also factor in the potential effect of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict. 43 Poverty measured using the US$3.2 international poverty line shows a similar trend – a decline in poverty to 33.6 percent in 2021; to 32.3 percent in 2022; and to 28.8 percent in 2024. 44 See Data and Methodology Appendix for details on constructing poverty estimates. Document of The World Bank June 2022 22 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update experienced a households would have been expected to have grown by 28 percent in 2020 from sharper impact on 2015 levels but are estimated to have only grown by 21 percent. On the other hand, consumption. poorer households were estimated to have experienced consumption level growth of 22 percent over that period, compared to an expected 26 percent without COVID-19. Several factors may These include the food and cash transfer programs launched at the peak of the have accounted for COVID-19, aimed at supporting poor and vulnerable households, and the recovery in the lower impact on the agricultural sector in 2020. However, those programs had a near universal coverage consumption among as data to support greater targeting were lacking (see Special Section for details). Had poorer households. they been more targeted, the programs could have improved the well-being of the poorest households more effectively. The initial effect of The rest of the section presents key findings from the High Frequency Phone Survey the pandemic was a (HFPS) conducted to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on household welfare. 45 The large contraction in pandemic disrupted labor market activities resulting in a large reduction in the number the labor market… of jobs, especially at the onset. Data from the first round of the survey (August 2020) indicate a 23 percent contraction in employment relative to pre-COVID-19 levels. 46 The impact was uneven both geographically and by household income (Figure 18 and Figure 19). In the Greater Banjul Area, employment levels contracted by over 30 percent relative to pre-COVID levels, compared to 20 percent in rural areas. Poor households saw greater job losses at the onset of the pandemic: In October 2020, job losses among heads of poor households were 9 percentage points higher than among heads of rich households. … and near universal In August 2020, 92 percent of households had experienced a decline in total income. income loss. Most of the decline stemmed from the loss of non-farm income. Declines in farm income were also high but may be linked to the seasonality of agriculture. Given that most non-farm businesses are informal, lockdowns and mobility restrictions initiated at the start of the pandemic are likely to have resulted in significant loss of business revenue, driving the decline in household income in urban areas. Continued inflow of The adverse effects of income loss are likely to have been mitigated in part by continued remittances is likely flow of remittances. For the poorest households, the flow of remittances was less to have supported volatile. Data from the HFPS shows that in August 2021, 44 percent of households in households— the bottom of an asset-based wealth index reported that the level of remittances from especially the abroad stayed the same, compared to 27 percent of households in the top 20 percent poorest. of the same distribution. Initially, the Employment levels in August 2020 were 23 percent lower than pre-COVID levels for pandemic affected male household heads and 22 percent lower for female household heads. Although labor men and women market conditions improved in August 2021, this benefited male-headed households similarly … more than female-headed ones. Employment levels among female household heads 45 The High Frequency Survey on the Impact of COVID-19 on Households in The Gambia is a collaboration between the World Bank and the GBoS, and financed through the State and Peace-building Fund. Results are representative at the national level and at the three strata levels (Banjul/Kanifing area, other urban areas, and rural areas) and are based on phone interviews. 46 Pre-COVID-19 employment levels throughout this section are based on the 2018 Labor Force Survey (LFS) which was used to sample households in the High Frequency Phone Survey. Although the questions on labor market activities in the LFS and HFPS are generally similar, possible differences in the implementation of the surveys: face-to-face in the case of the LFS and by telephone in the HFPS may affect the comparability of the surveys. It is therefore important to bear such caveats in mind while interpreting the results. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 23 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update were 21 percentage point below pre-COVID levels compared to 10 percentage points among their male counterparts. The large contraction in female employment due to the pandemic may in part reflect existing gendered roles in The Gambia—with women being responsible for taking care of the young and elderly household members. As lockdown has lifted since October 2020, the need for care duties has reduced, allowing women to return to work. … but poorer Job losses at the onset of the pandemic were higher among poor households than their households saw rich counterparts. The data also showed high labor market volatility among workers both a sharper initial from poor households. This may in part be driven by the sensitivity of the labor market impact and a faster to seasonal agriculture activities which are the main source of livelihood for the poor. recovery. Recent data from the HFPS survey show that poorer households are recovering faster than their richer counterparts. Between June and December 2021, job losses among poorer households declined by over 10 percentage points while they increased by about 2 percentage points for richer households. Other members of Comparing household heads with other household members shows greater job losses the household may among heads of households. The labor market also recovered faster for other household be working more members than heads, especially for the youth. This finding is consistent with the added to compensate for worker effect, i.e., increased labor supply among younger household members to make lost earnings among up for the lost jobs or income of the main earners such as household heads. household heads. Recent data indicate The services sector had the largest contraction in employment, with job losses increasing large movements from 5 percent in August 2020 to 14 percent in October 2020. Most of the recent into agriculture, increase in employment has been in agriculture; despite being the hardest-hit sector, mostly among poor, recovery in services remains slow. Between June and August 2021, employment in the rural and industrial agricultural sector increased by 20 percentage points while it declined by 14 percentage workers. points in the services sector (Figure 20). Most of the workers moving into agriculture are from poor households, rural areas, and the industrial sector. This highlights the importance of agriculture as a safety net against disruptions the labor market. The pandemic In October 2020, 47 percent of households were moderately food insecure. Over impacted food time, the incidence of moderate food insecurity declined by over 25 percentage points, insecurity but it reaching 22 percent in December 2021 (Figure 21). eased over time. Poor and rural In October 2020, 66 percent of rural households were moderately food insecure, households compared to 54 percent of households in other urban areas and 42 percent of experienced the households in Banjul/Kanifing. Similarly, the incidence of food insecurity among the highest incidence of poorest households at the onset of the pandemic was nearly double the incidence food insecurity. among the richer households: 67 percent versus 33 percent in October 2020. Recent data show that both moderate and severe food insecurity remain high in rural areas and among poor households. High levels of food insecurity may be driven by high food inflation as poor households spend about 65 percent of their total expenditure on food. Rising food prices Between 2020 and 2021, food price inflation increased by 3 percentage points. The continue to be a ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is likely to add further pressure on prices. Poor concern. households remain particularly vulnerable to falling deeper into poverty due to rising prices. Further analysis of the effect of rising prices on household welfare and poverty shows that at the current price levels, assuming household income levels remain the Document of The World Bank June 2022 24 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update same, the poorest households are expected to experience a 29 percent decline in their average consumption per capita relative to 2015 levels. Furthermore, under this scenario, the national poverty rate is expected to increase, especially in urban areas. Figure 16: Impact of COVID-19 on poverty rates Figure 17: Impact of COVID-19 on household consumption Actual poverty rate in 2015/16 and estimates for 2020 Percentage change between 2015 and 2020 69.5 66.6 68.0 26.3 27.3 27.4 27.1 27.5 50.2 21.8 21.3 20.5 20.3 20.6 48.6 46.6 31.6 36.7 29.1 2015/2016 With COVID-19 No COVID-19 Poorest Poor Middle Rich Richest National Rural Urban With COVID-19 No COVID-19 Source: World Bank staff calculations using 2015 Integrated Household Survey (IHS) and sectoral growth data. Figure 18: Job losses by area of residence Figure 19: Income loss by area and household income Percentage of households reporting job loss Percentage of households reporting loss of income 40.0 100.0 20.0 50.0 0.0 0.0 National Poorest 20% Richest 20% Rural Other Urban Banjul/Kanifing October 2020 December 2020 March/April 2021 June 2021* August 2021* September 2021* November 2021* December 2021* Area Banjul/Kanifing Area Other Urban August 2020 October 2020 December 2020 June 2021 Rural National September 2021 November 2021 December 2021 Figure 20: Transition across sectors, household Figure 21: Incidence of moderate food insecurity heads Percent of total Percentage of households reporting food insecurity 80.0 60.0 100.0 40.0 20.0 50.0 0.0 Banjul/Kanifing Richest 20% National Other Urban Rural Poorest 20% 0.0 Area August 2020 Before October 2020 December 2020 February 2021 April 2021 June 2021* August 2021* Area of Residence Wealth Quintile Agriculture, Hunting, Fishing, etc. Mining October 2020 June 2021 November 2021 December 2021 Public Utility Services Construction Transport and Communications Public Administration Other Services, Unspecified Source: Authors’ calculation using HFPS data, 2020–2021. *Beginning June 2021, more detailed employment data of all household members 7 years and above was collected. In previous rounds, only the labor market activities of the respondent (who was in most cases the household head) was collected. In this graph, the sample is restricted to a panel of household heads who have been interviewed. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 25 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update B. Outlook and Upcoming Challenges As the immediate impact of the pandemic recedes, The Gambia looks set for modest growth in the medium term, driven by a rebound in tourism, investment, and agriculture. However, a low vaccination rate, weather-related risks to agriculture, and the rising cost of living globally, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, could slow the recovery. A widening current account deficit, rising inflation eroding household incomes, and high fiscal deficits leading to domestic borrowing, could threaten the sustainability of the recovery and hinder poverty reduction. While successful elections have diminished the country’s political risks, it still faces the need for fiscal and monetary policy reform to build the fiscal space to respond to future shocks and widen its tax base. The economy remains constrained by a history of low and misplaced investment, low productivity growth, and a lack of diversification. By closing schools, COVID-19 is likely to have led to losses in human capital which could permanently scar its growth potential without evidence-led policies to reverse the damage. 1. Outlook The impact of The economy is expected to grow as the pandemic recedes and vital sectors recover, COVID-19 is driven by the return of tourism, continued foreign inflows, and large infrastructure receding and will investments (Table 5). However, the outlook is dampened by the global contagion of the support recovery, but ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Although its direct investment, tourism and trade links the war in Ukraine with Russia and Ukraine are limited, The Gambia is a net importer of food, fertilizer, is cooling growth and fuel. The conflict is expected to drive up the cost of these imports and increase prospects. inflation. Real GDP growth is projected to reach 5.6 percent in 2022 (2.7 percent in per capita terms), compared to the pre-war forecast of 6.2 percent (Figure 22). The services sector is projected to grow by 7.2 percent in 2022. 47 Agriculture should grow by 2.0 percent in 2022, assuming favorable weather, and industrial output by 4.9 percent in 2022. On the demand side, remittances are expected to continue supporting private consumption and investment in construction and improve the external position. The economy is GDP growth is expected to rise to 6.2 percent in 2023 (3.3 percent per capita) and to expected to grow 6.5 percent in 2024 (3.6 percent per capita), spurred by a rebound in services, increased modestly over the industrial and agricultural activity, and the pandemic-induced adoption of digital medium term. technologies. However, economic growth will be muted due to the impact of the war in Ukraine on commodity prices and terms-of-trade over the medium term. The growth assumes political stability, 48 renewed focus on policy implementation, and normal weather conditions. On the demand side, growth is forecast to be driven by a sustained increase in private consumption and public infrastructure investment. However, the negative effects of the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions may still be felt and with only 13.2 percent of the population fully vaccinated, the economy could be vulnerable to new COVID-19 variants. This could be compounded by further supply chain disruptions, and rising basic food, energy, and fertilizer prices because of the war. Pressure on the The current account deficit (including grants) is forecast to widen to 12.3 percent current account of GDP in 2022 (Figure 23). This increase reflects slower growth in service exports balance will persist. driven by slowly recovering tourism receipts, compared to pre-pandemic rates, while consumption and investment-related imports grow and the price of wheat and oil are expected to increase. Supply disruptions are also expected to widen the merchandise 47 Tourist arrivals during Q12022 were 47.3 thousand—a little more than half the pre-pandemic level. The outlook assumes a full tourism recovery (pre-2020 levels) by 2023. 48 The successful presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2021 and April 2022 respectively, in a region recently marred by democratic instability, are likely to support medium-term growth prospects. Document of The World Bank June 2022 26 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update trade deficit. Remittances are projected to stabilize as the record-high growth seen in the past two years is not expected to continue. Over the medium term, the current account deficit is projected to stay high, reflecting import-intensive public investment projects. However, exports will grow, supported by a rebound in tourism, albeit gradual, and revitalized re-exports. The deficit will largely be financed by FDI and capital transfers. Foreign exchange reserves are projected to hover at over 4 months of imports. Fiscal consolidation The fiscal deficit is expected to stay at 4.6 percent in 2022, as subsidies and transfers will be delayed for increase to partially offset rising fuel, fertilizer, and food prices. 49 In 2023 it will start another year but will to narrow to 3.6 percent, and then further to 3.4 percent of GDP by 2024 as the continue over the Government embarks on the fiscal consolidation anchored in the Medium-Term Fiscal medium term. Framework 2021–25 (Figure 24). As the economy recovers, tax revenues are projected to increase, supported by improved revenue administration and a tight tax expenditure monitoring framework. Development expenditure is expected to accelerate as the Government executes infrastructure investment to support the recovery. Recurrent spending is expected to rationalize, supported by public finance and civil service reforms in the medium term 50 rather than by adjusting social spending. Public debt is projected to stay on a downward path, declining to 68.7 percent of GDP by 2024 (Figure 25). Inflation is expected Inflation is projected to continue increasing and reach 8 percent in 2022, 51 as global to stay high in the supply disruptions and high commodity prices are expected to continue. These medium term… disruptions have been the main factor behind the persistent increase in inflation, primarily food inflation, since last year. Rising food prices will remain a burden for vulnerable households thereby constraining their ability to escape poverty. Annual inflation will start falling in 2024, but will remain relatively high. … calling for Elevated inflation amid a nascent economic recovery underscores the need for the CBG cautious monetary to gradually wean the economy off the accommodative monetary policy in place since policy tightening. the onset of the pandemic. The CBG continues to adjust its foreign exchange purchases, partly to mop up liquidity. As inflationary pressures build up, it plans to continue the sale of CBG bills and increase the special deposit facility rate to effectively mop up excess liquidity and ensure attainment of the target inflation rate of 5 percent by 2025. 49 The Government is expected to forgo fuel revenue worth 0.7 percent of GDP in 2022 to help avoid full pass-through from global to domestic oil prices. It has absorbed revenue losses of 0.2 percent of GDP from this source during Q12022. Moreover, rising input costs may push some SOEs to seek government support (e.g., the NFSPMC and the energy company NAWEC for larger-than-budgeted fertilizer and tariff subsidies). 50 For instance, recent reforms to strengthen the SOE sector include the completion of a special purpose audit of all SOEs and the ongoing implementation of its recommendations, signing a performance contract with NAWEC, a cabinet-approved clearance strategy on verified cross-arrears among SOEs as well as a monitoring and reporting framework for government guarantees, the establishment of the Directorate for SOE Oversight at the MOFEA, the publication of audited SOE financial statements for 2019 and preparation of a 2020 Consolidated SOE Financial Performance Report. Moreover, the new SOE bill has been submit- ted for parliamentary approval in April 2022 after a prolonged delay. 51 Average inflation for Q12022 stood at 8.1 percent, driven primarily by food inflation of 9.7 percent. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 27 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 22: Growth in real GDP and its components Figure 23: External sector performance Percent Left axis: percent, right axis: percent 55.0 0.0 30.0 5.0 -5.0 20.0 10.0 -45.0 -10.0 0.0 -10.0 -95.0 -15.0 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022f 2023f 2024f 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022f 2023f 2024f Export Growth Agriculture Industry Import Growth Services Real GDP Growth Current Account Balance (RHS) Figure 24: Fiscal performance Figure 25: Public debt Percent of GDP Percent of GDP Source: World Bank staff calculations and estimates based on data from MOFEA, the GBoS, and the CBG. Note: f = forecast. Document of The World Bank June 2022 28 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Table 5: Key macroeconomic indicators 2021 2022 f 2023 f 2024 f Real GDP growth, at constant market prices 4.3 5.6 6.2 6.5 Private consumption 3.4 7.0 6.0 4.7 Government consumption -7.9 2.6 6.1 7.4 Gross fixed capital investment -2.2 7.1 6.5 4.2 Exports – goods and services -27.1 15.5 11.0 7.6 Imports – goods and services -15.2 11.2 7.2 1.8 Real GDP growth, at constant factor prices 4.3 5.6 6.2 6.5 Agriculture 4.7 2.0 2.8 3.2 Industry 10.4 5.2 7.3 0.9 Services 1.9 7.2 7.2 7.4 Inflation (consumer price index) 7.4 8.0 8.0 6.3 Current account balance (% of GDP) -7.9 -12.3 -12.7 -10.9 Fiscal balance (% of GDP) -4.6 -4.6 -3.6 -3.4 Debt (% of GDP) 83.8 80.4 74.5 68.7 Primary balance (% of GDP) -1.6 -1.9 -1.0 -0.8 Source: World Bank staff calculations and estimates based on data from MOFEA, GBoS, and the CBG. Note: f = forecast. 2. Risks The outlook is A low vaccination rate leaves The Gambia vulnerable to the emergence of new clouded by risks COVID-19 variants. Should these lead to further lockdowns, domestic consumption related to new and private investments would be hit hard by external conditions and social distancing COVID-19 variants measures. The rising cost of living across the globe and the impact of the war may also and the Russia- slow down the recovery of tourism as Europeans—its key tourist market—have less Ukraine conflict. disposable income to spend on leisure or may choose to travel less. The impact of the conflict on commodity markets may disrupt agricultural inputs, increase construction costs, exacerbate food insecurity, and reduce households’ real incomes, which could jeopardize social, political and macro-fiscal stability. The medium-term Fiscal risks are high, particularly those related to a lack of fiscal reform. If the outlook is subject to Government relies on domestic borrowing to pursue an expansive fiscal policy to keep fiscal and weather- the economy afloat without effectively controlling non-priority spending, or continues related risks. with an accommodative monetary policy stance in the context of elevated inflation, this would further weaken fiscal management. This in turn could undermine growth by renewing pressure on the sustainability of the public debt and foreign reserves and crowding out private investment. Strengthening public financial management (PFM), cash management and budget execution, and implementing SOE and governance reforms will be key to mitigating these risks. In addition, erratic rainfall could lead to drought or flooding and disrupt agricultural output. Political risks have The second successful democratic transition in 2021 will further the implementation of moderated after reforms. However, a complex political economy could delay important legal reforms to June 2022 Document of The World Bank 29 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update successful elections, economic governance, 52 exacerbating fiscal risks. Moreover, the authorities lack solid but governance risks institutional and governance structures to maintain momentum on reform. These risks are still high. are mitigated to some extent by the fact that the country is under a three-year IMF ECF program. The IMF, the World Bank, and other development partners are also providing substantial support for the implementation of these reforms. 3. Upcoming Challenges The Gambia will Creating fiscal space will be important to support counter-cyclical policies in the face need fiscal resilience of external shocks. The Government can increase its fiscal capacity by expanding its to be able to respond tax revenues during good times, as the tax gap is estimated at 4–6 percent of GDP to shocks. (World Bank 2020b). Moreover, nearly half of the country’s tax revenue comes from international trade. This leaves it particularly vulnerable to shocks that lead to disruptions in trade, such as the pandemic and war. It should therefore seek to diversify its revenue sources by improving its capacity to collect direct taxes such as income tax. To further build fiscal resilience, The Gambia needs to reduce its debt burden to enable the Government to spend in response to crises without forcing it to cut essential services. One way could be to review its existing pipeline of loans before contracting new debt (World Bank 2021b). Domestic factors Transportation services by air and sea are critical for The Gambia as an import- compounding dependent economy. However, it has no stand-alone air cargo capacity: trade depends inflationary on tourist flights and relies heavily on the tourist season, rendering imports costly. The pressures... port of Banjul, managed by the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA), has limited capacity to handle current volumes, 53 causing frequent delays and extra costs for importers and consumers, 54 and feeding into inflation. Port congestion also limits access to foreign markets, thereby eroding the country’s competitiveness. In 2019, the GPA submitted a new master plan to develop the port to expand its container capacity (World Bank 2022b). The upcoming port expansion project, one of the many in the plan, will need to be expedited to alleviate the long-standing structural challenges affecting the country’s growth and inflation dynamics. …and major binding These constraints are first, a history of low investment growth with low private constraints will need investment, and public underinvestment (and malinvestment) in infrastructure and to be addressed to human capital, preventing the achievement of strong, enduring growth. Second, decades unlock the country’s of low or negative productivity growth, due to both idiosyncratic and economy-wide growth potential. constraints. Third, a poorly diversified economy and a narrow export base (agriculture and tourism) which help explain the stop-go nature of The Gambia’s growth. Sound fiscal stewardship will be needed to sustain business confidence and to create space for the productive public investments 55 needed to crowd in private investment. The Government will also need to improve the overall business-enabling environment and addressing critical constraints, such as limited access to finance (World Bank 2020c). 52 A narrow failure by the ruling party to secure a simple majority in Parliament following the April 9 parliamentary elections will help enforce accountability but may delay the enactment of important legislative bills such as the anti-corruption, procurement and SOE acts. 53 Ships must wait on average 10 days (and up to 22 days) to unload/load their cargo (World Bank 2022b). 54 Shipping companies are applying a port congestion surcharge to all cargo bound to Banjul worldwide https://www.chronicle.gm/ port-of-banjul-shipping-lines-to-increase-congestion-emergency-costs-on-all-containers/ 55 For example, electricity and infrastructure. Document of The World Bank June 2022 30 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Emerging growth Since the onset of the pandemic, remittances have dramatically increased, partly reflecting drivers could help reporting effects (See Real Sector for details). Some of these private remittances have the country to been invested in real estate and other construction. These flows have cushioned the continue to improve impact of the pandemic on the economy and sustained jobs at a time when tourism its competitiveness. was at a standstill. However, this implies that growth over the last two years has been largely driven by external financial flows fueling the non-tradeable sector and domestic demand. As these new growth drivers continue to support strong growth performance in the short term, 56 the Government needs to continue to press ahead with reforms to help rebalance growth towards more sustained tradeable sectors over the medium term and make The Gambia more competitive. Evidence-based The Gambia will largely avoid any negative effects on its potential GDP 57 as the tourism policies will be sector’s existing capacity and ongoing investments are sufficient to accommodate more critical to reversing than pre-pandemic arrival levels. Ongoing investments in the agriculture sector are also the scarring effects expected to increase productivity and potential output. Furthermore, the pandemic of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of technological innovation which is expected to increase on growth and productivity and growth. However, school closures during the lockdown and unequal productivity. access to remote learning, combined with lack of access to school meals, particularly in rural areas and among poor households, may have led to permanent losses in human capital. Although the Government adopted several mitigation mechanisms such as food aid and cash transfers, these losses could reduce the long-term growth potential of the economy. The Government needs to start reversing them by designing service delivery policies based on robust and integrated data across all sectors of human development: education, health, and social assistance. 56 This is because remittances could dry up due to recessions or slowdowns in origin countries, and the fact that residential construc- tion, while supporting growth in the short run, does not enhance the long-term potential of the economy. 57 From physical capital accumulation and technological advancement. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 31 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update C. Special Section: Data for Better Human Capital Data can help to improve development outcomes by strengthening policies, prioritizing scarce resources, and empowering citizens, but only if collected, interpreted, and used effectively. The Government of The Gambia has relied on traditional data collection for specific purposes but is increasingly investing in more frequent, better integrated data collection that can be put to a variety of uses. Progress has been uneven across social sectors, however. The Gambia’s development of social protection sector is hampered by scarce data that do not support effective monitoring and evaluation and resultantly, service delivery. In education, investment in more timely and granular data is already informing policy decisions and improving service delivery but better integration and data sharing could maximize these data’s usefulness. In the health sector, digitization of existing paper systems and better integration would help the Government with its ambition to provide universal health coverage and improve health outcomes. “You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” Daniel Keys Moran, computer programmer and science fiction author Effective policies Sustained progress in inclusive development has been hampered by the lingering require strong impact of the pandemic on human capital accumulation, among other areas. Reversing monitoring and these scarring effects will take a fresh perspective on policy making for better human evaluation (M&E), development service delivery and human capital formation. Comprehensive, regular, anchored in readily accurate, and timely data are essential for ensuring that policies are evidence-based and available data. effective, supported by a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system. This will require a stronger emphasis on data collection, and especially the systemic use of M&E, with indicators widely accessible to policy makers, ideally in real time. Data in The Gambia In The Gambia, public policy has relied on data collected for specific purposes such as have been collected national accounts and household and firm surveys, and through administrative systems by the Government such as birth records, pensions, taxes, and censuses (Table 6). The Government, with for specific donor support, has been central to these efforts. But public data collection methods purposes… can be costly and only performed infrequently, and the data often lack the granularity needed to make meaningful inferences about small sub-populations of interest. …but COVID-19 During COVID-19, The Gambia experimented with the use of new private sources facilitated the use of data, such as mobile phone call detail records (CDRs) to show the movement of of alternative data people to see if lockdowns were proving effective. Such data can be collected cost- sources. effectively, frequently, and at fine levels of granularity, typically by private sector actors, but it can take significant capacity and regulation to use such data without creating risks of misuse. The Government also made highly effective use of high-frequency phone survey data to monitor the effect of the pandemic on the well-being of households and assess policy responses to COVID-19 in real time. Use and re-use of Regardless of how they are collected, data will not make a difference to outcomes data can improve unless they are effectively used. Unlike factors of production, such as capital, land, development and labor, data do not diminish in value with use. Data that were initially collected for outcomes. one purpose can be re-used for a completely different one. Because of this essentially limitless potential, enabling data re-use and repurposing is critical if data collection is to lead to better lives. In a post-COVID-19 world, data-driven policies will be increasingly important in preventing some of the potential impact on long-term growth and human capital accumulation that might otherwise scar the economy (see Outlook and Upcoming Challenges). This section considers how the data in the social protection, Document of The World Bank June 2022 32 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update education, and health sectors in The Gambia could help inform development policy and improve service delivery, particularly for the poor and vulnerable. Scarce social protection data hamper effective policy making Context Social protection is The National Social Protection Policy (NSPP) and Implementation Plan (2015–16) still in its infancy offered a blueprint for an efficient and effective social protection system but support in The Gambia, for implementation has been slow. Therefore, it is no surprise that the data available with limited data to on social protection are extremely limited. Progress towards Sustainable Development monitor progress. Goal (SDG) 1.3 ‘by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and vulnerable’ is hard to measure. The 2021 SDG report states that only 1.1 percent of The Gambia’s poor population received a social assistance (SA) cash benefit in 2016, while only 6.1 percent the population are covered by at least one social protection benefit (Sachs et al. 2021). More recent data are not available. More data would Improved data would support evidence-based policy making in multiple ways. Data on enable more efficient the coverage of programs in geographical areas or of populations in need would help and effective service identify overlaps or gaps in programming. Data collected from beneficiaries through delivery in social tools such as beneficiary satisfaction surveys or citizens’ charters could improve the protection. delivery of services. Program data, including monitoring and evaluation tools, could help to identify results which could be used to advocate for further resourcing of programs; equally importantly, data which point to a lack of impact can be used to avoid the replication of ineffective programs. In the absence of data, programs are fragmented, potentially duplicative, inefficient, and not informed by evidence of previous successes and failures. Challenges and Opportunities There have been In 2013, a sector assessment, Moving Towards an Integrated and Equitable Social Protection several attempts to in The Gambia, profiled five SA schemes (Gavrilovic 2013). In 2018, a World Bank map and collect data Sector Diagnostic identified 13 SA programs (World Bank 2018). In 2019, the Ministry on programs, but of Finance and Economic Affairs (MOFEA) produced a report on social protection no systematic data financing, focusing on government-financed programs. Most recently, in 2020, the gathering. Government’s COVID-19 response mapping exercises showed a variety of proposed, ongoing, and recently closed operations. These reports have provided snapshots of programs, with limited information on target populations or specific beneficiaries other than numbers and geographical regions. None have collected data systematically over time. The NSPP 2015 also These include (i) no integrated M&E system; (ii) a lack of the systematic data required found shortcomings to determine the coverage and impact of work undertaken and inform policy making in M&E across the and program development; (iii) no unified management information system (MIS); SP sector. and (iv) use of inefficient beneficiary targeting approaches, often with unclear criteria, thereby causing leakage problems. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 33 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Even now, programs Few of the social protection programs profiled in any of these reports had robust are fragmented, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks. Some of the programs had results potentially frameworks measuring outputs, a small number had impact assessments, and only one duplicated, had a full impact evaluation with control group and treatment arms. The Nafa program inefficient, and not (World Bank 2021d), launched in 2020, does include a comprehensive M&E framework informed by lessons and has tried to take on board recommendations from the Building Resilience through learnt from previous Social Transfers (BReST) program. 58 The lessons learnt contributed to design changes, attempts. including increasing the benefit size, bringing payment points closer to beneficiaries, offering social and behavioral change to the whole community rather than just the targeted beneficiaries, and involving local administrations. The data that are Data in the sector are limited to project or analytical reports prepared for a specific available from purpose, often with development partner support. These ad hoc reports have not been individual programs consolidated to provide even a partial picture of the social protection sector, nor are are not consolidated they prepared with an eye to aggregation with other data. The resulting patchwork of or made public. information does not add up to an overall picture of the sector, nor does it provide the basis for evidence-based policy making. Lack of data in In the absence of a social registry or other means of identifying the poor, food aid the sector led to an and cash assistance was given out on a near-universal basis. This approach provided inefficient COVID-19 equality (everyone got the same) but not equity (as some households needed the help response. much more than others). As such, there were large inclusion errors—i.e., households receiving the support that did not necessarily need it—and the response was therefore more costly than it needed to be. Furthermore, lack of data meant that there was no means of ensuring that households were neither prioritized under multiple programs nor left out entirely. In 2019, the The new ministry’s Strategic Plan acknowledges the paucity of data, which hampers Government created decision making and limits the effectiveness of advocacy to promote the sector with a new Ministry of Government and development partners. The plan proposes a national beneficiary Gender, Children database to register and track beneficiaries of social protection interventions, as well as and Social Welfare. a process for collecting and analyzing performance data for different programs to track progress against result frameworks. Once instituted, this latter process would facilitate evidence-based decision making for future programs and allow for advocacy with the Government or other partners to support successful programs. The second Created within the Office of the Vice President to complement the new ministry’s development policy and implementation role, the NSPS is a coordination body, which is developing a was the creation national M&E framework. This will use a set of common indicators allowing results to of the National be aggregated from programs run by multiple ministries and development partners. It Social Protection is also populating a Social Registry with socio-economic data and a poverty score for all Secretariat (NSPS) in households to provide (i) a common gateway to identify appropriate recipients of SA 2020. programs thus improving the targeting effectiveness of the sector; and (ii) information on who is receiving what to prevent overlaps and so improve efficiency in the sector. To date, data for the Social Registry has been collected in a census-style approach in 36 districts. 58 This project aimed to simultaneously address acute malnutrition and resilience building strategies through cash transfers in The Gambia during 2016–19. A total of 5,500 lactating mothers in the North Bank, Central River, and Upper River Regions of The Gambia, were targeted to benefit from the project, receiving monthly cash transfers and comprehensive nutrition education in 10 health facilities across the country. Document of The World Bank June 2022 34 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Now that the Social The Social Registry represents a significant investment in data collection but will allow Registry is being for a more targeted, efficient response to social needs in future. The data collected developed, it will can be used in multiple ways, for example to prioritize the poor for income support be critical to ensure benefits under social programs, identify potential beneficiaries of an agriculture or that data are shared housing or connectivity program, or identify individuals who may need additional social rapidly and securely. welfare support, such as persons with disabilities or children out of school. This rich dataset will make programs more efficient by harmonizing the assessment process (the common gateway), facilitating prioritization of the poor (the poverty score) and reducing overlaps (feedback from programs as to who they are reaching). However, the data will only provide a return on investment if data sharing protocols are developed and used to respond to data requests rapidly and securely. Even while data collection was underway, there were several requests for data from the Social Registry—a testament to its potential utility. Further Recognizing the importance of data, the Government has launched the National developments are Identification card and a digital Civil Registry and Vital Statistics (CRVS) database (see underway that will below). Both will help uniquely identify individuals and households, enabling inclusion benefit the sector… and exclusion errors to be corrected. Linking these systems to the Social Registry would allow it to capture changes in household size and structure in real time, keeping its basic records up to date. There will still need to be periodic surveys or on-demand service centers allowing households to update the full socio-economic data associated with each household. A sustainability plan has been developed for the Social Registry, but such updates are likely to require continued development partner support. …and protect data The Government recognizes the increasingly important role personal data play in the rights. development of the economy and society at large. It has adopted measures to help protect personal data and associated fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular the right to privacy, to ensure public trust in the use of personal data. In February 2020, the Cabinet approved a Data Protection and Privacy Policy and Strategy, and the Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure (MOICI) has drafted related legislation, pending enactment. This legislation will provide assurances to those providing data for the Social Registry—and many other purposes—that the data will be stored and used responsibly. These developments can transform the way data are collected and used to further policy objectives in the sector. Policy Options Invest in regular data The NSPS should use the regular collection of data on social protection programs collection as a means against a common set of metrics to prepare an annual report on the state of social of ensuring efficient protection. This would promote efficiency by flagging potential areas for collaboration programs. and harmonization among programs and avoiding duplication. Examples of the data needed would include program target group, targeting method, coverage, benefit provided, and the frequency and duration of the program. Ensure that data are Data alone cannot solve development or service delivery problems, but effective used effectively to analysis and usage of data can shed light on difficult issues and possible solutions. support evidence- Data on programs collected annually from stakeholders should be analyzed to make based decision evidence-based recommendations for future programming, including which regions or making. categories of potential beneficiaries are under-served, which age groups are receiving June 2022 Document of The World Bank 35 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update inadequate support, and which types of programs are over or under used. The NSPS also needs to put in place a clear set of procedures, templates, and service standards for efficiently responding to Social Registry data requests. Information about the Social Registry needs to be made publicly available to ensure its efficient and effective use. Require and review The sector needs to institutionalize a robust M&E system, building capacity for M&E plans in all rigorous data analytics, reporting, dissemination, and usage. Logical frameworks or a interventions to theory of change in all programs showing how the proposed intervention will meet assess progress and program objectives should be required. The introduction of a national social protection impact. M&E framework should help to aggregate programs’ individual outputs and outcomes, showing progress towards national goals, including service delivery. Rigorous evaluation of large programs is essential, controlling for exogenous factors, to assess their impact. Programs featuring M&E frameworks need to regularly share findings with a wider audience and hold candid discussions on what worked and what did not. Data-based evidence should help internal advocacy for future financing in the sector. Re-use data Data collection is an expensive exercise, which is only worthwhile if the data are used originally collected to support programs across and beyond social protection. One example would be the for one purpose use of Social Registry data for multiple, diverse programs to reap economies of scale to support other in prioritizing beneficiaries for multiple programs. Another example of the re-use of development data is the use of CDRs to review the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on mobility. objectives. Regular, large-scale data collection exercises, such as the Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey, Demographic and Health Survey or Social Registry updates should be budgeted (at least in part) by the government, rather than depending on donors. Innovative data collection techniques such as phone surveys have proven to be low cost and highly effective in providing useful data, especially when traditional data collection techniques cannot be used, although mobile phone ownership among some segments of the population and network coverage remain constraints on reaching the poorest. Ensure personal data The Social Registry contains detailed personal data for many households. If these data are used safely. are to be used safely, their use must be underpinned by robust data protection and privacy legislation. Once the Data Protection and Privacy law is enacted, it is important to ensure outreach on the legal provisions and then enforceable action on those who do not use data responsibly. Create data linkages Connecting data across government entities would ensure that changes made in one across government database can be reflected in others. For instance, demographic data in the Social Registry for efficient updating can be updated in real time from the CRVS but will need periodic refreshes to update the and conferring socio-economic data. Other sources of data, such as the Integrated Household Survey services/ eligibility (IHS), should be used to inform the prioritization of SA programs. Furthermore, if for other services. an individual or household is identified in one database as having certain needs, this information can flag the need for services or conferring eligibility for benefits by other agencies. Document of The World Bank June 2022 36 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Investment in education data is beginning to pay dividends Context The Gambia The Gambia will need better data to monitor its progress towards toward SDG 4: A has invested in quality, inclusive education for all. Its investment in education data systems is already allowing developing data it to produce an annual report each May, based on data collected in November of the collection in previous year, which provides an overview of the evolution of the main education education, giving statistics. In the 1990s, The Gambia, like many other low-income countries, maintained access to more data an education management information system (EMIS) which mainly held raw data with than ever before. very few indicators. Recently, it has transitioned to an EMIS that goes beyond these traditional systems. More granular The strengthening of education data systems has made it possible to capture more data are providing disaggregated data on institutions, enrollment, teacher deployment, the state of school valuable insights that facilities, and basic examinations data. These data are available at the regional, district, can drive targeted and, in some cases, at the student level. This granularity helps improve existing policies policies… and allows for more targeted interventions that assist low-performing regions, schools, and vulnerable students. As of 2021, The Gambia is now able to track individual student data which is a critical step in developing tailored approaches. The robust student-level data system in Malaysia can serve as an aspirational model for data utilization, as The Gambia begins to make use of these new data moving forward. Figure 26: Number of institutions by school level Figure 27: Total enrollment by school level LBE UBE SSE 1,400 LBE UBE SSE 450,000 1,200 400,000 350,000 1,000 300,000 800 250,000 600 200,000 400 150,000 100,000 200 50,000 0 0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 June 2022 Document of The World Bank 37 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Figure 28: Proportion of qualified teachers by Figure 29: Proportion of qualified LBE school level teachers by region 100% LBE UBE SSE 2011 2022 100% 90% 95% 80% 90% 70% 60% 85% 50% 40% 80% 30% 20% 75% 10% 0% 70% Region Region Region Region Region Region 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 1 2 3 4 5 6 Source: MOBSE 2021 Statistical Yearbook. …that have greatly In the last few years, the Government has been using household survey data and improved access... disaggregated data from the EMIS to reduce barriers to education in the country. For instance, interventions to improve access to education resulted in the construction of 504 lower basic education (LBE) schools, 253 upper basic education (UBE) schools and 101 senior secondary education (SSE) schools 59 between 2011 and 2020 (Figure 26). The increase in the number of institutions at all education levels in all regions allowed the Government to make progress toward its goal of having an approved school within 2 kilometers of all communities. 60 For example, taking a phased approach, targeted classroom construction of lower basic schools (LBS) in Regions 3, 4, 5, and 6 reduced the share of communities without a LBS within 3km from 17 percent in 2013 to 3 percent in 2018. 61 Furthermore, The Gambia has integrated data collection on students with disabilities into the EMIS which has improved equitable access, by allowing for better school-level budget estimates for assistive technologies for students. Such data also allow the ministry to prioritize older schools that require rehabilitation of accessible ramps and toilets based on real time student need. …and prompted School fees were eliminated based on data showing that financial constraints were the removal of school main barrier to enrollment in The Gambia. 62 This coincided with increases in total fees which led to enrollment at all education levels, especially LBE. Enrollment in LBE increased from enrollment increases. 228,495 students in 2011 to 293,503 in 2015 and then further to 393,057 in 2020, an average annual growth rate of 6.2 percent (Figure 27). 59 The formal education system in The Gambia follows a 6-3 - 3-4 structure, with six years of LBE beginning from the age of 7, followed by three years of UBE. Together, LBE and UBE cover grades 1-9 and constitute the basic education level. This is fol- lowed by three years of SSE and four years of tertiary or higher education. The Government also encourages participation in early childhood development programs for ages 0-6. 60 IHS 2015 data show that 82 percent of LBE students, 62 percent of UBE students, and 50 percent of SSE students live within 2 km of school. 61 Until 2021, the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MOBSE) divided The Gambia into 6 administrative regions: Kanif- ing Municipal Council (Region 1), West Coast (Region 2), North Bank (Region 3), Lower River (Region 4), Central River (Region 5), and Upper River (Region 6). Since 2021, Region 5 has been divided into two sub-regions, to create a total of 7 administrative regions. 62 The associated loss in school income because of the elimination of school fees was matched by School Improvement Grants, based on the number of students at each school. For instance, at the LBE level it is calculated at a rate of GMD100/year per student. Document of The World Bank June 2022 38 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Deployment of The proportion of qualified teachers in The Gambia has been rising at all levels due to teachers has also policies aimed at improving teacher deployment (Figure 28 and Figure 29). Based on improved. data showing the relatively low proportion of qualified LBE teachers in remote areas, measures were put in place to incentivize more qualified LBE teachers to work in remote areas. With support from the World Bank, the Government initiated allowances giving qualified teachers in remote areas a salary premium of about 40 percent, in addition to improved teacher accommodation. 63 An evaluation of these policies suggests that the proportion of qualified teachers increased at a much faster rate in targeted remote areas than in other areas (Pugatch and Schroeder 2013). Challenges and Opportunities Household surveys Household surveys can provide detailed data on access to education facilities and are not held expenditure on education. Since such surveys are also typically used to estimate frequently enough to poverty levels, the data can be used to examine variations in access to schools and the be effective for policy resources devoted by households to education (relative to their other needs) across makers. households (e.g., poor versus non-poor, rural versus urban). The Government has used this information for policy making but the triangulation of indicators on access to education and household welfare status requires frequent and high-quality household survey data. In The Gambia, these surveys are only conducted every five years on average, constraining the formulation of evidence-based policies to improve coverage. Datasets could be While efforts have been made to progressively link data from various databases better integrated. and datasets, education data remain only partially integrated. For example, higher education/post secondary data are not fully integrated into the EMIS, nor are critical HR data which could improve teacher deployment/management. 64 Although it is also not fully integrated with EMIS, neighboring Senegal utilizes a sophisticated system for managing teacher recruitment and deployment data (taking into account redeployments, retirements, etc.) called Mirador which may serve as a model for The Gambia. Most importantly, EMIS data collection and other data collection efforts, including annual learning assessments, are heavily reliant on donor financing. It is important that the Government consider ways to include data collection and analysis in the budget, given how critical it is to the sector’s functioning, and to ensure sustainability over the long-term. Learning outcomes Several key steps have been taken to improve the data on learning outcomes, including data include national national assessment test data. These consist of the regular large-scale National student assessment Assessment Test (NAT) for grades 3, 5 and 8; the Early Grade Reading Assessment results. (EGRA) and the Early Grade Mathematic Assessment (EGMA) for grade 3 or 4; the Gambia Basic Education Certificate Exam (GABECE) for grade 9 and the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Exam (WASSCE) for grade 12. Service delivery In 2020, additional investment was made in the gathering of representative service indicators show The delivery indicator (SDI) data for LBEs nationally and at regional level. These include Gambia performs a module that measures grade 4 students’ learning outcomes and one on teachers’ 63 The data suggest that these incentives have resulted in a reduction of the student/teacher ratio in most districts to below 40:1. 64 For example, information on which local languages are spoken by teachers prior to their posting is not well known and negatively impacts instruction in local languages. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 39 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update relatively well on knowledge and efforts. While The Gambia performs relatively well on the availability of educational inputs inputs (e.g. infrastructure and equipment availability) and teacher absenteeism, the data but poorly on teacher reveal a number of issues with teaching quality and student learning outcomes. 65 The quality and student vast majority of teachers did not meet the minimum academic and pedagogical score outcomes. of 80 percent. Less than 1 percent of teachers in all regions attained the combined minimum knowledge scores in English, Mathematics, and Pedagogy. At the student level, pupils scored an average of 30.5 percent in Mathematics and English. Newly qualified An expanding education sector over the last 30 years has not seen a concomitant rise in LBE teachers had the teaching workforce as teaching became a less lucrative career over time and generally very low competency low learning outcomes affected the skills of those going into teaching. Nonetheless, scores on average. reforms are ongoing in teacher training (both for in-service and pre-service teachers), teacher deployment, curriculum development, and national language policy. The Gambia Teacher Competency Exam was introduced in 2020 as a final examination for graduates of The Gambia College School of Education who will become LBE teachers. It also reveals low levels of content and pedagogical knowledge. Assessment of teachers’ competency levels could enable (i) the overhaul of pre-service teacher education; and (ii) recruitment of the highest performing graduates, rather than a blanket recruitment policy as is the case currently. COVID-19 has shed COVID-19 revealed data shortcomings as the Government worked to pivot to distance light on other critical learning. These include (i) the need for better data on digital infrastructure (e.g., who data gaps. has access to what technology, including teachers) to support distance learning; and (ii) the need for nimble real-time information gathering mechanisms to respond to shifting realities on the ground. The pandemic also underscored the lack of varied learning assessment data, especially rapid formative assessments. Flexible assessments of students on their return to school and beyond, will be critical to targeting instruction and remediating learning losses in the event of future shocks. Significant data Although it is suggested that enrollment in technical and vocational education and gaps make it hard to training (TVET) programs is lower than it is in comparable secondary level and post- assess the vocational secondary-level programs, estimates of TVET enrollment in The Gambia are currently education sector’s limited, as they are in other SSA countries. Relatedly, data on public expenditure in the potential for skills TVET sector are currently unavailable. Although the Ministry of Higher Education, development. Research, Science and Technology (MOHERST) is currently working to improve data collection at central and institution level, the lack of data on graduates’ transition from school to work and the lack of clear linkages between institutions and industry also remain a challenge. It also prevents linkages to labor information systems which could inform policy makers on the relevance of training programs, and allow for potential reskilling programs to address labor gaps. Limited capacity This is an issue at all educational levels. Education systems routinely underuse learning to effectively and other kinds of data, and findings do not always make their way to relevant analyze, report, and stakeholders. For example, although EGRAs have been undertaken several times (most disseminate data recently in 2016) with support from donors, limited analysis of student performance hampers usage. in various literacy subskills has made it challenging to make use of the findings. Lack 65 The SSA average SDIs are 60.5 for minimum equipment availability, compared to 96.7 for The Gambia, and 38.1 for minimum infrastructure availability, versus 68.9 for The Gambia. For school absenteeism the SDIs are 18.6 for SSA and 12.9 for The Gambia and for classroom absenteeism 39.8 compared to 26.5. Document of The World Bank June 2022 40 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update of timeliness, inadequate distribution to stakeholders, and limited links to actionable policies are key data challenges. More could be done Schools and communities have made only limited use of data. In the past, the EMIS has to share and use data been used to generate comparative education data in the form of school report cards, at the community giving a snapshot of school performance to inform stakeholders about the quality of level to help drive each school. These cards, which work similarly to student report cards, provide schools improvement. and stakeholders with evidence on the areas that need more attention. Although a commendable and important first step, providing the data alone will not necessarily lead to action. More efforts need to be made to (i) make information easily digestible; (ii) better engage schools and surrounding communities in a more participatory approach; and (iii) build in mechanisms to use the data to inform action, e.g., through better school improvement plans. Policy Options Improve students’ The Global Proficiency Framework (GPF) is an international tool which defines learning data to align minimum proficiency levels learners are expected to obtain in reading and math.66 with international Aligning its current national assessments and curriculum with the GPF is a significant proficiency measures way The Gambia could monitor progress toward SDG 4.1. Further, while large-scale and support teaching national assessments play an essential role in providing information on the overall and learning. education system’s performance and highlight important achievements and challenges (including inequities), they are not sufficient to drive targeted classroom instruction. Formative classroom assessments which facilitate instruction and provide real-time feedback to support teaching and learning are an essential piece of the puzzle, but are rarely used in The Gambia, and teachers are not well trained to do such assessments. Use learning data to Better use of learning data will be crucial to improving the quality of learning, improve education especially given recent concerns about low performance of students at all levels. This quality and ensure is evidenced by poor results in NAT and GABECE, as well as the low percentage of the system is relevant students achieving university entrance requirements in the WASSCE. Learning data will to labor market also be key to ensuring that the education system is responsive to labor market needs needs. by showing where improvements to teaching are needed, and identifying gaps in the curriculum which could be filled. Make greater A strong education data system is one which provides a complete picture of all the efforts to integrate important indicators that combine to affect the quality of a system, region, district, or additional data student. This depends on the integration of data from different sources. For instance, sources. data on school availability, supplies, and infrastructure could be linked to exam results and human resource (teacher) allocation data to provide a full picture of school and student performance. Similarly, more use could be made of household survey data to understand household-level factors which affect the education sector, such as examining how health and poverty indicators are linked to education access and outcomes. The integration of administrative data could vastly improve the system’s potential but would require greater collaboration between ministries and other stakeholders such as GBoS, as well as investment in capacity building. 66 The GPF articulates a global consensus of the minimum skills and competencies learners should be able to demonstrate at key points along their learning trajectory. The purpose is to provide detailed proficiency expectations that countries and national and regional assessment organizations can use to link existing reading and math assessments to SDGs 4.1.1(a) and (b): Proportion of children and young people: (a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics, by sex. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 41 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Collect more and Rates of return to education are high in The Gambia and increase with each successive better data on youth level of education. Education also increases the change of employment in sectors employment and with high returns and contract employment (World Bank 2017). Despite these rates skills development. of return, specific data on the TVET sector is limited. The Education Sector Policy Framework (2016–2030) elaborates plans to revitalize the TVET sector. This strategy proposes a review of the current TVET curriculum with the goal of improving its labor market relevance. To understand where investment will have the most impact, policy makers will need better information on the skills development programs on offer and any current gaps in provision, labor market demand, the profile of young people searching for work, and information on school-to-work transitions. The policy objective of improving accessibility by creating TVET centers outside of Banjul, where 90 percent of TVET institutions are currently located, will require a well-developed understanding of student demand, regional variations in skills development needs, and a strong M&E system to manage limited resources. Devote more The World Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) initiative, resources to which assesses the EMISs of several countries, consistently finds that limited accessibility distributing data for and openness of data, and inadequate dissemination efforts, lead to limited utilization the greatest impact. (Abdul-Hamid et al. 2017). Making education data available at the school level, as has been done with school report cards, and more generally to the public can empower communities to hold schools and authorities accountable. Providing integrated administrative data to practitioners, academics, and others could also lead to better- informed insights into key development challenges, by allowing for technical analysis by multiple parties. For example, Sierra Leone has a model whereby data scientists from their Directorate of Science Technology and Innovation use predictive analysis, data visualization, and machine learning to analyze administrative data. Such efforts require greater government-wide investment in developing statistical capacity. Increasingly integrated data support improved health care Context Current health The vision of The Gambia National Health Policy (2021–2030) is “a healthier and more policies require data productive population through UHC.” The policy and the attendant Gambia National measuring universal Health Strategic Plan (GNHSP) (2021–2025) require accurate and complete data for health coverage monitoring progress and evaluation. The data needed for measuring progress towards (UHC). UHC and other health indicators are collected from multiple sources. Data sources abound The most relevant data sources include District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2); in the health sector population census; population-based surveys such as the IHS, Multiple Indicator but paper-based Cluster Surveys (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS); quality of care registers are used at (QoC) checklists; user satisfaction surveys; and the eCRVS. The electronic DHIS2 health facilities is the primary source of routine data for monitoring the delivery of health services. Paper-based registers are used to record data at the health facilities and monthly return forms are used to collate and transmit aggregated monthly data to the regional health directorates, where the data are entered into the DHIS2. The data from health facilities provide the “numerator” for calculating service coverage rates while the denominator comes from annual projections based on the 2013 Population and Housing Census. Despite the use of paper-based registers at the health facilities in 2021, 72 percent of Document of The World Bank June 2022 42 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update public health facilities submitted timely monthly reports to the DHIS2 i.e., not later than the tenth day after the end of each calendar month. Nevertheless, an electronic health record system at health facilities would be more efficient. Data revealed that Since 2014, the Government has used a results-based financing (RBF) mechanism quality of care to improve maternal and child health and nutrition. Alongside this scheme, the QoC improved, as well as checklists were developed and administered quarterly by the MOH Quality Assurance user satisfaction… Unit and Regional Health Directorates to track QoC at each health facility that received RBF 67 and report the average scores. The median QoC score in the 37 project-supported health facilities increased from 71.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017 to 86.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018. The QoC checklist was revised in October 2018, including a new checklist for Reproductive and Child Health clinics that do not provide as many services as a health center. In 2020, the average QoC score (using the revised checklist) in the five rural regions 68that received RBF (72.8 percent) was significantly higher than in the two urban regions 69 that did not (46.4 percent). As a result, QoC checklists were further rolled out with the expansion of RBF nationally and are currently administered quarterly across the country. Client tracer and satisfaction surveys administered from 2014 to 2020 indicated high (98 percent or more) client satisfaction with the service received. …and showed Although they are only run every three to five years, population-based surveys have improvements been instrumental in informing health programs and policies. The most recent DHS in reproductive, was in 2020. It showed that the share of children aged 6–23 months consuming at least maternal, newborn, four out of seven food groups increased from 7.6 percent in 2014 to 22.2 percent in and child health. 2020; and women using modern contraceptives increased from 3.5 percent in 2014 to 15 percent in 2020. The IHS in 2015 and in 2020/21 provided useful data on access to health care facilities (such as distance and travel times) and household expenditure on health. Both surveys have measures of household well-being: the household asset index in the DHS, and measures of household poverty in the IHS. These make it possible to examine how much health care indicators vary across households. Data have informed Data have also highlighted a need to strengthen PHC services. In The Gambia, minor policy to focus health centers deliver up to 70 percent of the basic health care package, including basic on strengthening emergency obstetric care, yet only 9 percent of the total health budget in 2018 was primary health care allocated to PHC. In contrast, 43 percent of the budget was allocated to the country’s (PHC) services and ten hospitals (of which five are in the two urban regions). 70 These data led policy makers achieving UHC. to focus on improving and supporting PHC services and equity across the country. In response, the GNHSP 2021–2025 stressed the need to accelerate the provision of quality services and UHC. The Health Financing Policy 2017–2030 states that The Gambia should “achieve sustainable UHC for everyone living in The Gambia by 2030 by ensuring adequate and sustainable financing of health care services to protect the population from financial hardship, particularly the poor and vulnerable.” Data also showed To reach UHC, The Gambia has expanded the RBF scheme from the initial five rural RBF is effective in regions to cover the remaining two urban regions, WR1 and WR2. In addition to the 67 Under the World Bank Group (WBG) financed Maternal and Child Nutrition and Health Results Project [MCNHRP], 2014-2020. 68 North Bank West, North Bank East, Lower River Region, Central River Region, and Upper River Region. 69 Western Region 1 (WR1) and Western Region 2 (WR2). 70 Source: January–December 2019 Gambia DHIS2. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 43 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update improving health improved QoC results noted earlier, RBF has contributed to the increased use of primary outcomes. maternal and child services. While the number of births attended by community birth companions (CBCs) fell, the number of pregnant women referred to health facilities by village health workers and CBCs for delivery and complication management increased by threefold from March 2014 to June 2020 (Figure 30). This improved coordination between CBCs and health care workers is an important achievement as other countries implementing community RBF have reported competition between the two groups. The Government is Based on the success of RBF, the MOH, MOFEA, and National Nutrition Agency planning to put RBF jointly developed an RBF Sustainability Roadmap in September 2018. This roadmap on a sustainable outlined a national RBF framework detailing institutional, financial, and operational footing. sustainability. The Government has been demonstrating commitment to RBF by allocating budget funds to RBF since 2019. 71 The Government, with support from the World Bank, has also developed an Essential Healthcare Package for each level of the health care delivery system 72 and updated the QoC checklist accordingly. Figure 30: Deliveries by CBCs versus referrals by CBCs to health facilities Source: Routine HMIS/Demographic Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) data 2015–2019. Challenges and Opportunities Disaggregated The Gambia Public Expenditure Review 2020 noted that its analysis was limited due to public expenditure a lack of disaggregated data on spending (for example, on staffing, pharmaceuticals, and data on health are supplies) at the health facility level. This paucity of data limits the Government’s ability needed. to measure the efficiency of health facilities. Thus, it was recommended to strengthen the Integrated Financial Management Information System by expanding its access to all institutions involved in the budget execution process. Progress has been slow on that front. Efforts are underway Routine health data have mostly been collected by health facilities using paper-based to convert from systems and keyed into the DHIS2 monthly. This process has limitations including 71 GMD12 million (about US$250,000) in 2019; GMD40 million (about US$800,000) in 2020; and GMD50 million (about US$1 million) in 2021. 72 Including village health services, community clinics, minor health centers, major health centers, district hospitals, general hospitals, and the teaching hospital. Document of The World Bank June 2022 44 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update paper-based records delays in the availability of real-time data, as well as higher rates of clerical error in to a range of transferring data compared to healthcare workers entering data electronically at the health information point-of-care. The MOH is in the process of establishing open source, web-based systems… platforms for the Electronic Logistics Management Information System (eLMIS), Electronic Human Resource MIS, Electronic Medical Records System, and a system for enrollment, beneficiary management, provider management, and claims processing of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Making these health information systems interoperable with the existing DHIS2 will enable efficient data sharing among institutions, improve data accuracy, and provide stronger data protection. … including also the When completed and accurate, the CRVS will be the best source of disaggregated data CRVS. for health outcome indicators. However, the CRVS system is paper based. The Gambia is working to establish a functional electronic CRVS (eCRVS) system to improve the coverage of civil registration of vital events (births, deaths, marriages, and divorces). Presently, the Government is focusing on registering everyone’s birth. Once people’s ages are clear through birth registration, the next step may focus on using that data to strengthen marriage registration to help prevent early marriage. COVID-19 At the onset of COVID-19, The Gambia did not have an effective public health accelerated the emergency surveillance system in place. However, over the past two years, supported by improvement of the development partners including the World Bank, 73 the Government has integrated electronic national the electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance Response into the DHIS2 platform, disease surveillance interfaced with laboratory management information systems. An electronic COVID-19 systems. vaccination information system was also established. These new and improved systems contributed to detecting and responding to the threat posed by COVID-19 and strengthened the national systems for future public health emergency preparedness. Policy Options Link the eCRVS and The Government aims to achieve universal electronic birth registration and national NHIS information health insurance enrollment by November 2024. This provides a historic opportunity systems to other to make everyone in The Gambia count while enhancing the health system with government robust data which will be useful wherever people’s identities need to be verified when information systems. providing services. From March 2022, each person will be issued a birth certificate and National Health Insurance Card with National Identification Number (NIN), and Quick Response (QR) code at mass registration centers. If other government agencies can access the CRVS and NHIS data in real time, that will reduce the burden on the public and tremendously improve the accuracy and efficiency of public service delivery. Once mass registration is complete, the eCRVS is expected to be interoperable with information systems in health and other sectors. Improve the quality Properly establishing the eCRVS system will provide the data needed for tracking of and digitize the health outcomes and replace the existing projections from decennial censuses. The multiple sources of paper-based QoC checklist should be digitized to improve efficiency. Electronic health data required for records, along with other health information systems, when established, will provide M&E in the health real-time data for continuous monitoring of health programs. That will lead to quicker sector. detection of emerging health threats and the changing health trends, empowering the Government to make agile and data-driven decisions. 73 The Gambia COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project (P173798). June 2022 Document of The World Bank 45 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Make better use of Household survey data such as the DHS and IHS include data on health care stratified household survey by age as well as on measures of household well-being. Such data could be used to data to strengthen examine variation in access to health care across poor and non-poor households and the formulation of across life stages, to inform reforms which aim for a more equitable access to health policy which aims to care. Since such surveys typically use the same question format over time, trends can improve quality and be used (to a reasonable extent) to highlight progress, or identify existing gaps and coverage. areas which require urgent action in the provision of quality care. One such area in The Gambia is, improving the availability of adolescent reproductive health commodities and qualified health workers at the community level for adolescent-friendly services. Increased use of such data can be facilitated by better linkages of various data sources and strengthening institutional collaboration, especially between the MOH and GBoS. High quality data from multiple sources will inform Annual Health Sector performance review meetings (with the participation of development partners), to track progress in the implementation of the GNHSP. Conclusion An integrated Given the range of data availability across the three sectors in The Gambia, and approach to data upcoming initiatives, a clear first need is to link the various datasets that contain robust management is data and support an integrated approach towards human capital and provisioning of needed for effective services. One such example is the ongoing development of the Social Registry whose policy making to data can be used by many different programs through stronger linkages with other improve service new and active systems. For instance, demographic data in Social Registry can be delivery. updated from the CRVS. Similarly, access to CRVS by relevant government agencies can improve the efficiency of public service delivery. The household survey, if held frequently enough, can be used to inform the prioritization of SA programs. It can also support a more equitable access to education and health care, particularly to improve the labor market relevance of the former. Document of The World Bank June 2022 46 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Table 6: The Gambia social indicators Indicator 2010 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Social protection Share of population receiving social assistance (%) 1/ 7.1 1.5 … … 5.9 … … … Share of population covered by at least one social protection benefit (%) 1/ 10.1 4.5 … … 15.0 … … … Expenditure on social protection (% of GDP) 2/ … … … 2.7 0.9 … … … Education Gross enrolment rate: early childhood education … 45.3 45.8 46.5 51.2 54.6 55.5 53.1 Gross enrolment rate: lower basic education 88.3 101.2 104.0 108.6 112.7 117.9 120.7 120.4 Gross enrolment rate: upper basic education 66.2 68.3 66.8 67.4 68.1 70.5 73.1 75.9 Gross enrolment rate: secondary education 33.9 41.6 44.0 45.9 47.8 49.4 50.8 51.1 Secondary completion rate 28.3 34.9 36.6 37.7 39.3 41.9 44.0 46.2 Children out of school (% of primary school age) 32.1 24.1 22.3 19.8 18.2 14.7 12.8 13.6 -- female 30.8 20.8 18.7 16.0 14.3 10 7.4 8.1 -- male 33.4 27.3 25.9 23.6 22 19.4 18.2 19.1 Adult literacy rate (15+) … 50.8 … … … … … … -- female … 41.6 … … … … … … -- male … 61.8 … … … … … … Youth literacy rate (15-24) … 67.2 … … … … … … -- female … 64.4 … … … … … … -- male … 70.7 … … … … … … Public expenditure on education (% GDP) … 1.9 2.0 1.8 2.2 … … … Health Immunization, DPT & HepB3 (% of children ages 12-23 months) 97.0 97.0 95.0 92.0 93.0 88.0 … … Immunization, measles (% of children ages 12-23 months) 92.0 97.0 97.0 90.0 91.0 85.0 … … Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births) 45.8 39.7 38.6 37.5 36.5 35.6 34.7 … Maternal mortality ratio (national estimate, per 100,000 live births) … … … … … … … … Life expectancy at birth, total (years) 59.6 60.9 61.2 61.4 61.7 62.1 … … -- female 61.0 62.3 62.5 62.8 63.2 63.5 … … -- male 58.4 59.6 59.8 60.1 60.4 60.7 … … Physicians (per 1,000 people) … 0.1 … 0.1 … 0.1 … … Public expenditure on health (% GDP) … 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 … … … Nutrition Prevalence of stunting (% of children under 5) 23.4 … … … 13.6 … 17.5 … Exclusive breastfeeding (% of children under 6 months) 33.1 … … … … … … … Low-birthweight babies (% of births) 17.4 16.8 … … … … … … Gender Gender gap index (rank) 75 98 104 119 120 … 136 … Proportion of seats held by women in parliament (%) 7.5 9.4 9.4 10.3 10.3 10.3 8.6 … Gender parity: lower basic education 1.02 1.05 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Gender parity: upper basic education 0.98 1.0 1.03 1.07 1.10 1.10 1.14 1.16 Gender parity: secondary education .82 .95 .99 1.06 1.09 1.09 1.11 1.16 Female labor force participation rate (%) … … … … 14.0 … … … Source: World Development Indicators, Global Gender Report (various years); MOBSE (2021) for education data except for literacy rates which come from UNESCO Insti- tute of Statistics. Notes: data from different sources are likely to have used different definitions and methodologies so will not be directly comparable. 1/ 2018 data from World Bank (2018). 2/ 2017 data from MOFEA (n.d.); 2018 data from World Bank (2018) and includes donor spending. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 47 Coming Back Stronger The Gambia Economic Update Appendix: Data and Methodology The primary objective of this study was to assess the poverty and distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pan- demic on different groups of households in The Gambia. The study used quantitative information from household-level data of the 2015/2016 Integrated Household Sur- vey (IHS) and national account data on sectoral growth rates between 2015 and 2020 to examine the impact of the pandemic on household welfare. The survey used in the study covered 13,189 households in The Gambia and included data on household consumption levels, poverty rates, and other socio-economic data such as household members’ sector of employment. Since the latest household consumption data available were collected in 2015/2016, the study used national ac- counts data to make projections about households’ current level of welfare. We took the average real growth rate in private consumption from the national accounts data and used it as a proxy for growth in household consump- tion. With certain assumptions, we used this parameter to project household consumption from 2015 up to 2019. We began by updating household consumption from the 2015 national survey using the growth rate of deflated private consumption from national accounts data using the specification below: C_i2019=C_(i,2015)* (1+Ø)4 Where: C_i2019 represents the household (i) consumption in 2019 at constant prices (GMD). C_i2015 represents the household (i) consumption in 2015 (GMD) Ø represents the average growth rate of the consumption of the household “i” over time (i.e., average of 5% during the period 2016–2019). The poverty line used in the 2015/2016 exercise was GMD11,794.66 for extreme poverty, and GMD18,039.95 for absolute poverty. We updated this information using the yearly inflation rates for the period 2016–2020 (based on data from the IMF and the national authorities). The resulting estimated poverty line for 2020 was GMD14,555.8 for extreme poverty and GMD22,263.12 for absolute poverty. Using information about the employment sector of the head of household we calculated the poverty rate (head- count ratio) as well as the average consumption for each quintile in each scenario. Using the “updated” household consumption (i.e., the 2019 consumption levels) we constructed two scenarios: 1. A counterfactual “without” COVID-19 scenario. To obtain consumption levels for 2020 under this sce- nario, we used the expected real growth rate for each sector as it was forecasted prior to the pandemic to estimate what the average growth for each sector would have been in 2020 in the absence of the pandemic. These sectoral growth rates were then applied directly to the updated 2019 household consumption figures to obtain estimated values for 2020. 2. A “with” COVID-19 scenario. To calculate consumption levels under this scenario, we used actual average sectoral growth rates for 2020 to adjust the estimated 2019 household consumption to obtain the 2020 figure. For each scenario, we constructed quintiles of household consumption. These indicators were constructed at a national level. The information on average consumption for each quintile could then be compared between the two scenarios to highlight the magnitude of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on household welfare. 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Wash- ington, DC: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099155004272227227/ P17475305b0a5a0660b4800e9ee7e18988a. June 2022 Document of The World Bank 51 5 Atlantic Boulevard, Fajara, The Gambia Tel: 220 4498089/90 Fax: 220 4497936