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Momodou
Denmark
11723 Posts |
 Posted - 06 May 2017 : 22:09:51
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OPENING REMARKS AT THE COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP RETREAT FOR CABINET MINISTERS
BY
HIS EXCELLENCY ADAMA BARROW PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE GAMBIA
BANJUL
5TH MAY 2017
Your Excellency, Hon. Minister of Women’s Affairs overseeing the Office of The Vice President,
Honourable Cabinet Ministers,
Honourable Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service,
Secretary to Cabinet,
Your Excellency, former Prime Minister of Niger,
The Special Representative to the UN Secretary General,
The Director, UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa,
Representative of the UN Economic Commission for Africa,
UN Resident Coordinator,
Facilitators of this Retreat,
Members of the media fraternity,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good evening to you all.
It gives me great pleasure to warmly welcome you all to this retreat for Cabinet Ministers. I would like to extend special thanks to the senior UN officials who have taken time off their busy schedules to come and support us in this important policy forum.
Before going any further, let me on behalf of the entire Cabinet and on my own behalf, take this opportunity to sincerely thank the United Nations Development Programme Gambia and the entire UN System for organizing this important meeting. This retreat is very timely and is one of the critical support systems that the UN has generously provided, and continues to offer to the new government since the elections in December 2016. It is the first in a series of capacity building and experience sharing platforms that the UN has committed to support us with.
Ladies and gentlemen, this retreat could not have come at a better time given that the new Cabinet members and their technicians are working hard to finalize and align the vision as contained in the Coalition 2016 Election Manifesto with the new National Development blueprint.
This workshop clearly provides us the unique opportunity to interact and enhance our ability to create the conducive environment in which we can hold inclusive and constructive conversations on how best to serve our people.
Today, the responsibility to make key decisions that will have significant impacts on which direction we take as a country, rests on us. Therefore, how we engage among ourselves and the actions that we agree on will determine how our country seizes this opportunity of change to build a better and prosperous future for this great country.
We have inherited many challenges including a low performing public service, lack of accountability as well as a credible policy direction, that have understandably led to growing frustrations of the population, particularly the youths.
However, these challenges provide the opportunity for an urgent reform of our systems and structures as well as attitudes so that together, we can usher in higher output, greater democracy and economic growth.
I have no doubt that constant national engagements and reflections at policy level like this will strengthen our unity and cohesion so that we can all rise above partisan interest and work for the public good, for the new Gambia.
Clearly, we have come from a painful past especially in the last two decades in which we hurt each other in many different ways. While I strongly believe in the healing power of reconciliation and forgiveness, it is important to underscore the reality that justice must not only be served but in fact be seen to be done where necessary. However, what is urgently required of us is to unify the country around our transformative development agenda so that we can move speedily with our bilateral and multilateral partners to bring about socio-economic development for our people.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need to take a moment to reflect on the Gambia that we wish to see our children grow up in and to identify the changes in attitudes and behaviours that will be required to bring about the new Gambia we promised. A culture of accountability will be a crucial start, so that national resources and those contributed by our partners are wisely invested. The ability to collaborate for the sake of national interest even in the heat of political competition will be equally crucial.
The most important element is for the leadership to be exemplary, and as such we must demonstrate by our personal action a commitment to the highest standard of integrity and personal positive reform for the public to follow.
The Gambia’s aspiration for inclusiveness that leaves no one behind and builds peaceful and strong communities across the country is vital to the success of our democracy.
The Gambia cannot afford to leave its women and youths behind making it important that all collaborative efforts include and involve women equally, to achieve sustainable peace and development.
This is why I am particularly happy that this afternoon we will be deliberating on the draft National Development Plan 2017 to 2020 which will essentially guide our choice of priorities to move this nation forward. We should be forward looking in our thinking and direction as we fight to reduce poverty, which currently stands at almost 50%.
Also of importance is the need to improve our infrastructure, generate decent employment for our people especially the youths and women, and by extension improve the standard of living of all Gambians.
Ladies and gentlemen, my government is committed to encourage and create spaces for collaboration, dialogue and constructive feedback from the people of the Gambia, who gave us the mandate to serve them.
We are therefore pleased with the UN support to expand and entrench a culture of collaboration and dialogue among ourselves.
We will count on your continuous support for the strengthening of national capacities to build momentum among the leadership and Gambians generally, for all inclusive peace and development.
It is my hope that this retreat will be an opportunity for genuine interactions and reflections in which we can gain insights from one and another’s experiences and from our resource persons here present.
With those few remarks, it is now my honor to officially declare this cabinet retreat open and I wish us all a fruitful experience.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Momodou
Denmark
11723 Posts |
Posted - 06 May 2017 : 22:16:15
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 Statement by Abdoulaye Mar Dieye during the Government of Gambia's Retreat on Building Capacities for Collective Leadership
May 5, 2017
http://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2017/05/05/statement-by-abdoulaye-mar-dieye-at-the-government-of-gambia-retreat-on-building-capacities-for-collective-leadership/
Statement by Abdoulaye Mar Dieye during the Government of Gambia's Retreat on Building Capacities for Collective Leadership
May 5, 2017
Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with great pleasure and honor that I am attending, on behalf of UNDP, this high-level government seminar on collective leadership.
The Gambia is entering a phase of renaissance. The trauma has been deep as it lasted 23 years, almost a generation. It will take sustained efforts and collective leadership to transform, into the building of a new nation, the élan vital, the vital force that emanated, just a few months ago, from what history will likely call, one day, a people’s revolution towards freedom and enlightenment.
Thomas Jefferson was right in saying that “the will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object”.
The Gambians have eloquently shown that a people united will never be defeated; and the people of The Gambia have indeed built, in golden stone, their pantheon of freedom and their bridge to the future.
This seminar is an important step of the journey to “protect the people’s free expression” by supporting “the construction of a collective leadership” that can respond to the “new social contract” and the needs of the “new nation” that Gambians want to build.
We must also salute the role of African leaders in supporting the victory of democracy and the sanctity of the rule of law in The Gambia.
We are in a transition. A transition towards a more prosperous, peaceful and secure future for the country; and transition can be a long and difficult journey; fraught with risks and volatility.
If The Gambia experience was a seminal textbook on preventive diplomacy, it is now, for all of us, a pressing test case for sustaining peace; as we must be equipped to weather the potential uncertainties of the future and to unlock the development opportunities of the country.
To do so, we must address, urgently and collectively, three strategic imperatives:
1. The imperative of rebuilding, or in some cases, re-inventing state institutions, including the parliament, the public administration, the judiciary and the security apparatus.
2. The imperative of rapidly jump-starting the economy and setting it, structurally, on a sustainable development path; and
3. The imperative of mending a much-stressed social contract.
But all this will require a Call-to-Action, in three key areas:
There is need to rapidly rebuild the country’s budgetary and fiscal space in order to bolster the Government’s leadership in driving the much-needed and pressing reforms. Such a fiscal space is now very narrow. Today, gross public debt is about 120% of GDP— way above the IMF-recommended prudential upper limit of 70%. Already in 2016, interest payments were forecasted to rise close to 50% of government revenues; and international reserves have fallen to a precarious low level of about only 3 weeks of imports; hence far below the recommended foreign reserve prudential ratio of 3 months of imports. Therefore, it is critical that partners provide fast-track budgetary support to The Gambia.
International Financial Flows, public and private, must resume in The Gambia. This would be our collective down payment to accompany the legitimate hope and aspiration of the people; and to nurture the rebirth of democracy and the rule of law. I would like to salute the resolution of the Government to organize a donor conference, to review and to seek funding for a comprehensive recovery and medium term economic development plan, with a focus on economic diversification, youth employment, women empowerment and regional integration.
Rebuilding the social contract, may need not only the much called for investment on Truth and Reconciliation and re-securing people’s trust in government; but also and critically, it will require the collective design and the implementation of a shared national long-term vision, which will capture the spirit of “The New Gambia People Want”.
Collective leadership will be the driving force of such an agenda. But collective leadership is a shared process that aims not only at designing commonly-agreed strategic goals, but also at embracing the totality of actors in realizing those goals.
Hence, it will also require that leaders, partnerships, cross-sector alliances, private sector, community-based organizations, grassroots and citizens’ movements jointly leverage, in a synergetic fashion, the power of their interdependent networks to generate exponential gains, in the rebuilding of the nation.
That is precisely the philosophy of this Retreat.
UNDP and the UN System at large will be on the side of The Gambia in that journey.
I thank you. |
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Opening remarks by H.E Adama Barrow
