By Mariatou Ngum & Abdou Mbye
His Excellency Mohammed B.S. Jallow, Vice President of the Republic of The Gambia, on Wednesday 9th September met with Ms. Nafisa Binte Shafique, UNICEF Country Representative to The Gambia, for talks aimed at securing a dedicated national budget line to combat child malnutrition.
She was accompanied by Mr. Karl Frédérick Paul, UN Resident Coordinator for The Gambia, and Mr. Malang N. Fofana, Executive Director of the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA), among others.
Briefing the OVP Media after the meeting, Ms. Shafique said the discussion focused on the national budget allocation for nutrition commodities, particularly Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), which is used to treat children suffering from severe and moderate malnutrition. She noted that there are children across the country who currently require this treatment, support that has so far been entirely financed by UNICEF, and that the meeting sought to negotiate a budget line for the next fiscal year and beyond so government could begin procuring the commodities directly.
Ms. Shafique said the government has already demonstrated strong commitment to nutrition, having signed on to the global SUN Movement, participated in the Tokyo Nutrition Summit, and, under the Vice President’s leadership, enacted the National Nutrition Act in 2024, which comes with its own dedicated financing plan. She added that investment in nutrition yields significant returns, citing estimates that every dollar invested can generate up to 23 dollars in return, an investment case she said was presented directly to the Vice President.
According to Ms. Shafique, the Vice President responded positively, describing him as a champion for nutrition who fully understands the issue given that the National Nutrition Agency falls under his office. She said he committed to doing his utmost, working alongside the UN Resident Coordinator’s office and UNICEF, to prepare the ground for negotiating the budget line.
Speaking separately, Mr. Paul, the UN Resident Coordinator, described the Vice President’s support as critical not only for the United Nations but, more importantly, for The Gambia and its people. He said the goal was to establish the budget line ahead of the 2027 fiscal year, noting that full funding was not required immediately and that a progressive approach, increasing by increments of 20 percent annually until reaching full funding, was being advocated.
Mr. Paul said the initiative was rooted in human capital development and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and the six transitions needed to build a prosperous Gambia where children can learn, live, decide, and thrive. He added that discussions also touched on helping government procure RUTF and, in the long term, produce it locally, pointing to The Gambia’s peanut value chain as a viable base for local production, an approach already used by some other West African countries. He said coordinating efforts among UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Bank remained central to achieving this shared goal.