At the launching ceremony, participants were also sensitised about the EPMDP in key areas such as its background, result areas, expected outputs, geographic coverage, key partners and implementation strategy among other things. The EPMDP was launched at the national level in 2007. Since then there has not been any regional forum to sensitise stakeholders and beneficiaries at the level where the majority of the targets reside. However, the field staff members have been sensitising people during their interactions with them at the community level. In view of this, the project plans to conduct regional launching and sensitisation meetings in all the regions.

Speaking at the launching, Yusupha Sanyang, the deputy mayor of Kanifing Municipal Council, said that the official launching of the Entrepreneurship Promotion and Micro Finance Development Project is a clear manifestation of government’s commitment towards poverty reduction in The Gambia, in the short and medium terms, and its total eradication in the long term.

He noted that the government's Vision 2020 blue print emphasises participatory governance and balanced development to contribute to the poverty alleviation and that its economic and fiscal policy put poverty reduction a central theme in its development agenda. "The SDF as the executing agency of the EPMDP is an important component of the country's PRSP. It has a cross-cutting institutional framework and acts as a permanent umbrella funding mechanism with a view to enhance the realisation of the specific objects set out for each of the pillars of the country’s PRSP," he concluded.

George W. Thomas, the chairman of SDF, indicated that the government has consistently prioritised poverty alleviation in its development programme. He explained that in the late 90’s the PRSP led to the creation of the Social Development Fund (SDF) as an institution designed to be the flagship for poverty alleviation.