CONSULTATION ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN THE Gambia

The ministry of finance in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme organized a one day consultation meeting with the disability community through the Gambia Federation of the Disabled which is the umbrella body representing the disability community in The Gambia on Thursday 5th 2020 at GOVI Hall Kanifing. Persons with Disabilities across all regions of The Gambia were fairly represented. This consultation meeting is done to gather information on the implementation of the sustainable Development Goals as the Government of the Gambia is scheduled for a voluntary National Review at the UN High level political forum on sustainable Development in July this year.

The meeting started with the chairperson of the Gambia Federation of the Disabled magistrate krubally giving the opening statement and emphasized the relevance of the forum, followed by the director of social welfare who deliberated on the implementation of the SDGs and the relationship it has with the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities after which the meeting was declared open by the deputy permanent secretary of ministry of finance. A brief presentation on the seventeen sustainable development goals which the Gambia signed in 2015,and its implementation process, the facilitator explained the importance of each goal and its impact on our lives, the participants were later engaged in a focused group discussion in which members of each group elaborated on their areas of intervention, what impact it had on their lives, challenges they face in implementing those interventions, how and where they learnt about the SDGs in which some participants said they learnt it from the internet, tertiary institutions and workshops, they were also asked to scale the goals according to the impact it has in their lives