A two-day Message Development Workshop on the Mellinnium Development Goals (MDGs) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) advocacy and disseminating campaign, organised by Pro-Poor Advocacy Group (Pro-Pag), in collaboration with Strategy for Poverty Alleviation Co-ordinating Office (SPACO), recently concluded at the Baobab Lodge and Resort in Kololi.

The Message Development workshop funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), aimed among other things, to create and develop messages that can be used as advocacy and dissemination tools.  

During the course of the workshop, participants created and developed messages to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, and to ensure environmental sustainability.  

Speaking at the workshop, Dr Siga Fatima Jagne, Executive Director of Pro-Poor Advocacy Group (Pro-Pag), said her group with its partner institutions are working on a joint project on the development of the MDGs/PRSP advocacy strategy and dissemination campaign for The Gambia. She added that a group of technical personnel are tasked to work on the process.

She reiterated the need for the rolling out of the Gambia 's second generation PRSP which commenced on January 2007 to be accompanied by a robust awareness campaign on the MGDs/PRSP series. "This is in line with The Gambia government and UNDP's desire to scale up MDGs related interventions to meet the 2015 MDGs targets. The need to promote the understanding and the use of the PRSP and MDG on development planning, at both national and local levels for poverty reduction in The Gambia is critical to the process" she stated.

According to Dr Siga, the low rate of PRSP 1 implementation was also due to the lack of resources adding that there is also a general lack of knowledge of the MDGs.

The advocacy, awareness campaign and dissemination strategy, according to her, will lead to information sharing and the empowerment of citizens to be better poised to participate in development process. She added that the nation-wide advocacy and sensitisation programmes on the MDGs/PRSP, will create awareness and a sense of ownership of MDGs/PRSP related projects and programmes implemented by partners, aimed at meeting national and international targets.

Dr Siga then noted that the message development workshop is important as it will pave the way for the successful implementation of MDGs/PRSP programmes in meeting the MDGs, by 2015 and Vision 2020.

Mrs Adelaide Sosseh, Chairperson of Pro-Pag commended participants for their concerted efforts in developing these messages. This, she said, will significantly contribute to the achievement of the MDGs and PRSP goals in The Gambia.

Alieu Darboe of the Management Development Institute (MDI) emphasised the need for messages to be concrete and simple in a bid to enable the audience to embrace it.