Attachments
In Numbers
150,972 people assisted in March and April 2025
US$ 192,074 cash-based transfers made from March to April 2025
US$ 6.3 million six-month (May-October 2025) net funding requirements
Operational Updates
• WFP continues to support 421 schools across the country’s Upper River, Central River North and South, and North Bank Regions through its Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme. The programme improves the health and nutritional status of a total of 150,972 children, comprising 54 percent girls. The third and final term of the 2024/25 school year began in April 2025.
• The Country Office welcomed a Columbia University mission team to analyse and document the HGSF programme in The Gambia, organised by the Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition (CERFAM) as part of a broader exercise. The final report highlights that the programme’s decentralised supply chain has improved staple crop availability, strengthened local food systems, and contributed to household food security. Locally tailored school menus are improving dietary diversity, student well-being, and attendance. Additionally, community-based food management committees – led by parents, particularly mothers – ensure inclusive governance, further enhancing programme ownership and effectiveness.
• The Country Office in collaboration with African Risk Capacity Limited (ARC Ltd) and stakeholders, including insurance providers, conducted a capacity building initiative for over 50 participants on inclusive insurance in March 2025. The two-day training aimed at building the capacity of the Central Bank of The Gambia, relevant government ministries, insurance associations, microfinance institutions, and farmer organisations. WFP and partners seek to increase national ownership and private sector participation, gradually handing over the distribution and management of microinsurance programmes in the country to local stakeholders to ensure long-term availability and sustainability of insurance products among vulnerable communities.
• In April 2025, WFP conducted a training on financial literacy, personal household budgeting and planning, savings and their importance, as well as loans and responsible borrowing for 701 smallholder farmers (494 men and 207 women) from 56 communities and two groups of the National Farmers Platform, currently enrolled and covered under a micro-insurance scheme.
• WFP together with partners trained more than 100 people, including national and regional experts from various government institutions, such as the Ministry of Forestry and the Environment and Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Security in April 2025 to develop knowledge and skills on erosion features identification, water harvesting, as well as soil and water conservation principles and techniques. The initiative seeks to contribute to improve crop productivity and soil fertility and reduce soil and water loss. The three-day training was held in three communities in the Upper River and Central River North and South Regions.
• WFP supported a preliminary total of 5,184 people (648 households) affected by river flooding in the Central River North and South Regions of the country through unconditional cash transfers for 3 months in April 2025. The floods affected agricultural fields, mainly rice fields, situated around the banks of the river Gambia, severely impacting their yield and posing challenges for households to meet their required food stock as expected. A total of US$ 140,581 was distributed to the most food insecure families headed by women farmers.
• The Country Office in partnership with the Government published a new Joint Market Bulletin Report in April 2025. It reveals that the economic situation of the country is moderately in progress despite global trade fragmentation and geopolitical tensions. The Central Bank of The Gambia’s Composite Index of Economic Activity projects 5.9 percent economic growth in 2025. Headline inflation remains high with 9.1 percent annually. This continues to reflect on the food inflation, which yearly increased by 10 percent, adversely impacting the ability of the most vulnerable people in the country to afford a healthy diet.