We welcome Tuesday’s consultative forum on social
protection in The Gambia convened by the Department of Social Welfare and its
partners.
It must be well noted that the forum is very much essential as many Gambians especially those in the informal sector lack social protection.
In order to improve social protection for all Gambians, we need to address the challenges to effective and sustainable social protection measures for informal economy workers and their family members.
In the same vein, we need to look for resource mobilisation strategies supporting social protection in the informal economy.
There is no doubt that we must further develop and implement sound social protection policies that particularly address workers and their family members in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.
There is absolute necessary for political commitment, and to mobilise adequate national resources to have better social protection for all citizens.
Civil society organisations and development partners must be seriously and constructively engaged in setting up monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for analysing the impacts of social protection in the country.
There is no doubt that the working conditions of most informal economy workers in this country are very harmful, and as such they are not able to access any form of social protection under current social security schemes.
The Gambia needs a comprehensive national social protection system providing basic social protection for as many workers and family members as possible.