🌍🤝 "United Nations and The Gambia: Collaborating for a Greener Future 🌱💡"

🌍🤝 The video showcases a pivotal three-day visioning exercise in The Gambia, a joint venture by the United Nations and the Gambian government. This initiative was instrumental in integrating the UNSDCF into the government's green recovery-focused National Development Plan for 2023-2027. 🌱💼

🎯 The workshop successfully identified and validated The Gambia's critical national priorities, a strategic step towards achieving the 2020 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

🔑 UN Resident Coordinator, Ms. Sarafina Wakana, emphasized the historical importance of this forum, serving as a crucial guide for the UN system's strategy over the next five years. 📈🌐

🤲 The workshop assembled representatives from 132 diverse organizations, including government, the UN, civil society, international organizations, media, academia, and the private sector. These stakeholders collaborated to create a sustainable mechanism to tackle global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and climate change. 🌍🦠🌩️

👏 The Gambia's Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs lauded the UN office in The Gambia for its steadfast support to the government. He encouraged the UN system to deepen collaboration, fostering a stronger alignment between the recovery-focused National Development Plan and the cooperation framework. 🤝🌱

⏰ The Secretary General and head of the Civil Service recognized the workshop's timeliness, aligning seamlessly with the government's new development plan. The finalized cooperation framework would lay a solid foundation for UN support, propelling The Gambia towards its medium-term development aspirations. 🚀🌍

📚 The Gambia had made progress in several sectors, including governance, education, and life expectancy. However, opportunities for growth remained, particularly in harnessing the private sector as the engine of The Gambia's economy. Despite limited progress in the last National Development Plan due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ineffective institutional arrangements, and challenges in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals due to data scarcity, the new cooperation framework aimed to be all-inclusive, ensuring no one, especially marginalized women and children, was left behind. 🚀📈👩‍👧‍👦