EFA Region One Chapter holds workshop for councillors

Education for All (EFA) Region One chapter Saturday organised a three-day workshop for ten councillors, three resource persons and two support staff from Kanifing Municipality and Banjul.

Declaring the workshop open, the chairman of EFA Region One Chapter, Musa Mendy, thanked the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) and EFA Campaign Network for their fruitful partnership with his chapter.

He called on the participants to make the best use of the opportunity offered them by his chapter by implementing the knowledge gained from the three-day workshop in their various offices.

Mr Mendy also used the occasion to commend the Mayors of Banjul and Kanifing Municipality, Samba Faal and Yankuba Colley, for the personal interest they showed in his chapter since its inception. 

Speaking shortly before the start of the three-day workshop, the vice-chairman of region one chapter for EFA, Mbye Njie, said the workshop was based on three issues, namely gender budgeting process, gender sensitive budgeting and participatory budgeting process.

The workshop was funded by the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) and implemented by EFA Campaign Network Region one chapter, he noted.

Mr Njie said the main objective of the workshop was to ensure that finances of government, local and central, are properly accounted for, to reduce the potential for abuse by individuals both within and outside the system.

The workshop, held to involve community women, the youth, the poor and the marginalised in priority and budgeting settings, also enhanced local democratic culture, nurtured civic engagement and stimulated development initiatives among the participants.

  “The whole idea about the workshop was participation, transparency, equity, tolerance, efficiency and effectiveness, equality, competitiveness, and consciousness,” Vice-chairman Njie said.