Teneng Ba Jaiteh, Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service, has said that The Gambia government is fully committed to do all it can in achieving the Vision 2020 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In a statement read on her behalf by Abdoulie Sallah, Secretary to the Cabinet, on Wednesday, at a one-day UNDP-Gambia Government 2007 end of year programme review meeting, at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel,  SG Jaiteh expressed government’s profound gratitude and appreciation to the UNDP country team and all UN agencies in The Gambia , for their continued collaboration in diverse areas pertinent to the country’s immediate, medium and long-term development needs.

"It was with a high sense of expectation due to our confidence in UNDP as a trusted partner, that the government embraced the current programme cycle with UNDP which is based on relevant pragmatic framework document notably, the Country Programme Document (CPD )or the Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). Signed in December 2006, the CPAP has become the reference for joint programming by UNDP and the government, covering a 5-year cycle from 2007-2011," she said.

According to her, The CPAP reflects the priorities of The Gambia, which hinge around poverty reduction and the achievement of MDGs as well as the deepening of human rights and good governance.

She then described the UNDP-Gambia Government 2007 end of year programme review meeting as important in not only bringing partners from each of the above areas at a common forum, but also to improve implementation performance. She then maintained that the government of The Gambia would continue to defend its collaboration with UNDP in achieving concrete programme results and outcomes.

For his part, Vitalie Muntean, UNDP resident representative  in The Gambia said, UNDP  will continue to engaged in reflecting and examining their cooperation framework while seeking evidence of what is being achieved in terms of result and lessons learnt in order to further improve their performance  towards a successful implementation of the 2007-2011 Country Programme Document (CPD)

He added "2007 was indeed a challenging year but I am happy to note that, we have been able to face these challenges and took significant steps that allowed us to provide support to key national development and policy dialogues with relevant stakeholders.

However, during the period under review, one of the greatest challenges was to set in motion the operationalisation of the new CPAP for the 2007-2011". He added that notwithstanding the progress made so far, UNDP realises that much more needs to be done in order to successfully achieve the development objectives set in the 2007-2011 CPD/CPAP.

The UNDP boss then expressed gratitude to the Office of the President and other implementing partners for the strong support and excellent collaboration during the first year of CPAP implementation and looked forward to a continuation of government-UNDP fruitful partnership in 2008. He also made assurance of UNDP’s strong commitment to providing assistance to the government and people of The Gambia towards attaining the MDGs.