ActionAid International’s Director for West and Central Africa, Mrs. Dede Amanor-Wilks, will visit The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau from the 18th to the 24th of February 2008. During this time she will meet with partners including senior Government officials, UN agencies and other donor partners. She will also visit ActionAid programme sites in the field and in Guinea-Bissau, which is a cross border initiative managed by ActionAid The Gambia.

Mrs. Amanor-Wilks recently took up her appointment with ActionAid International, and is based at the Africa Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya. Her visit to The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau is part of a tour of ActionAid Country Offices in West and Central Africa to acquaint herself with the Country Programmes.

Mrs. Amanor-Wilks’ visit comes at a time when ActionAid The Gambia’s third Country Strategy Paper (CSPIII) for 2008-2012 has been drafted and submitted for approval. The drafting of the new strategy involved the participation of all stakeholders including Government representatives, NGOs and CBOs as well as communities. The Country Programme focuses on four core strategic priorities: Women and Girls’ Rights, the Right to Food, the Right to a life of dignity in the face of HIV/AIDS and Malaria, and the Right to Just and Democratic Governance. There are also the cross cutting issues of the Right to Education and Human Security in conflict and emergencies which are subsumed in other priority areas covering climate change, urban growth, youth population and youth migration among others.

It is expected that at the end of Mrs Amanor-Wilks’ visit, the CSPIII for ActionAid The Gambia will be approved, and a new Memorandum of Understanding signed between ActionAid (Guinea Bissau) and the Bissau government.