Westminster Foundation launches project ‘to democratize’ Gambia’s political parties

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) is to launch a two-year project in the Gambia aim at strengthening internal democracy in country’s political parties.

The two-year programme was hatched at the 2018 London meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government, in the UK to work with parliaments to improve the representation of women, youth and persons with disability.

The programme comes under the theme, ‘Advancing Inclusive and Accountable Democracy in the Commonwealth’. The Gambia is one of the 18 beneficiary member countries.

However, in the Gambia the programme will focus on political parties aimed at strengthening their governance systems and leadership capacity.

Mainly, the project will focus on making political parties more open and inclusive for women, youth, persons with disability and minorities in their power and decision-making structures and processes.

The project title for the Gambia is ‘Enhancing Women, Youth and Politically Marginalised Group’s Political Participation and Representation in Decision Making Processes and Institutions’.

The activities of the project will include assessment of the internal governance instruments, systems, processes and structures of political parties with a view to determining their level of inclusiveness and participation of the target population.

The WFD’s country representative Madi Jobarteh said there will be various capacity building activities targeting party leadership as well as women and youth structures and leaders.

The project will also target CSOs, the media and traditional and religious leaders in an attempt to address issues of gender, discrimination and exclusion.

The project will be launched on Thursday 22 November 2018 at Ocean Bay Hotel, Cape Point.