Garden Management - National Social Protection Agency

Mon to Fri: 08:00 am to 16:00 pm
[email protected]

The Gambia Social Registry

In February 2016, the Government of The Gambia approved the National Social Protection Policy (NSPP). The policy defines a comprehensive and cross-cutting social protection (SP) agenda and proposes a set of priority actions to guide the gradual establishment of an integrated and equitable social protection system in The Gambia. The NSPP is accompanied by a Social Protection Implementation Plan (SPIP), which defines a set of activities to guide the implementation of the NSPP across four (4) results areas/goals;

Establish and strengthen the NSPP leadership, coordination and implementation mechanisms;
Increase coverage of social protection policies and programmes to meet the NSPP objectives;
Strengthen the social protection system for effective planning, delivery and monitoring of social protection programmes; and
Develop a sustainable financing strategy and mechanism to fund the implementation of the NSPP and specific programmes.

Many initiatives are underway to support the NSPP and SPIP, but they are fragmented. It is important to develop strategies to improve programmes’ design, including modalities for identifying and registering the intended beneficiaries. While the NSPP promotes universal coverage for various target populations, there is insufficient fiscal space to put this in practice and so there is a need for targeting of social protection programmes to prioritize coverage of the poorest and most vulnerable in order to make social spending more efficient. Based on the aforementioned challenges, the development of The Gambia Social Registry (GAMSR) has been identified as a key priority as part of the third results area of the SPIP. GAMSR can provide a gateway for inclusion in social protection initiatives and an improved information system on beneficiaries and benefits to promote better coordination and synergies among programmes.