Drivers of Change
Unlocking Results for Children in The Gambia
Investing in health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, education, social protection, and child protection services alone will not enable us to ensure the provision of every right for every child. The sustainability of our interventions relies on ensuring the children and adolescents can flourish in an inclusive, responsive, and resilient, environment.
At the heart of UNICEF Gambia’s Programme for children and adolescents 2024-2028 are 4 Drivers of Change that will together unlock these results.
Empowering Adolescents
Children and adolescents make up just under 50% of the population of The Gambia and,
when empowered and their rights fulfilled, can drive positive change.
Across all our programmes, we will engage with adolescents to empower them with 21st
century skills, amplify their voices, and provide safe platforms where they can engage with
their peers, communities, and decision-makers to drive positive change. This includes
strengthening youth participation in decisions and policies that impact their lives. In 2019,
UNICEF Gambia supported the establishment of the Children National Assembly that
provides a forum for young people to advocate for their rights and issues that matter to
them. We will continue to strengthen the capacity and potential of the Assembly,
alongside, working with youth platforms in schools, and communities, to ensure
adolescents participation and agency indecision-making, at all levels.
Beyond participation, we are focused on ensuring skilling and engagement opportunities
for adolescents from technical and vocational education training, green and digital skills,
and means to pursue livelihood opportunities here in The Gambia.
Achieving Gender Equity
Today outcomes and opportunities for boys and girls in The Gambia contrast starkly and
the barriers to achieving their rights are equally varied. While the percentage of boys
enrolled in school is lower than for girls, girls face additional challenges staying in school.
A lack of gender-sensitive water and sanitation facilities, the practice of child marriage,
and adolescent pregnancy threaten girls’ opportunities to learn and participate. Violence
against children is high, but especially against girls, with 50% of girls aged 0-14 years
having undergone FGM. Addressing gender disparities and ensuring equity will be a
priority across all programmes.
Building Climate Resilience
The Gambia is amongst the countries where children and adolescents are most exposed to the risks of climate change, ranking 37th in UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index. We will ensure that climate resilience is ingrained within all our programmes, from solarpowered water systems to strengthening emergency preparedness in the face of increasingly devasting floods. We are also working with children and young people to empower their engagement in the response to the climate emergency, from supporting platforms, like the Children National Assembly where their voices to heard, to ensuring they are receiving the technical and vocational skills to be able to respond to climate shocks.
Ensuring Transformative Social Behaviour Change
Social behaviour change is essential in ensuring the transformational changes needed to
realize the rights of every child, especially the most marginalized including girls and
children with disabilities. We recognize that changing knowledge is not enough to change
behaviours. Through our partnership with local communities, families, children, and
adolescents we will work to understand and remove barriers to foster environments that
will make it easier for communities to adopt positive practices for children.
This includes working with adolescent groups both at community level and in schools to
help break the culture of silence surrounding harmful practices and promote positive
social change, whereby young people are themselves the agents of change. At the same
time, UNICEF will support the creation of safe spaces to help foster these conversations,
including child-friendly digital spaces for victims of violence.