Gambia Bureau of Statistics is currently on training workshop for survey participants of fourth and final phase of this round of social registry data collection exercise.The convergence is taking place at the Paradise Suites Hotel.
It’s could be recalled that in February 2016, the Government of the Gambia approved the National Social Policy.This policy defined a comprehensive and cross-cutting social protection agenda and proposes a set of priority actions to guide the gradual establishment of an integrated and equitable social protection system in the Gambia.
Speaking at the launching ceremony,the statistician general Mr Nyakassi Sanyang spoke at length on the importance of activity noting that the exercise is very crucial and that the GBOS will not in any way comprise it’s intergrity and will ensure that all necessary precautions and preconditions are put in place to protect their intergrity.
“Let us understand that we have a big task ahead.Our actions may be responsible for the inclusion of those who are ineligible to be part of the programme as well as the exclusion of those who eligible to be part of benefit,and this will defeat the purpose of the programme and it’s impact will not be realized as expected.”
Mr Sanyang further stated that the overall objective of the data collection exercise is mainly to build the Gambia Social Registry.
” The purpose of building the GAMSR is to consolidate into a single common database,key information about the current and and potential beneficiaries of social programmes,in order to create a single- entry point for the main social protection programmes to access information about potential beneficiaries”
The GBOS chief said GAMSR database shall comprise of households’ demographic and social- economic data.Based on this information,he added that different social programmes can apply their own inclusion criteria to screen potential eligible beneficiaries.
The first phase of the exercise was conducted in 2020 and covered 30 districts in URR ,LRR ,Fonis and 1 district in NBR(Sabach Sanjal).
The second phase covered the remaining 6 districts of NBR while the third phase was conducted in 2023 and covered the 4 Kombo districts of the West Coast Region.
