The Gambia’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration, and Employment (MOTIE) hosted technical consultations 26–28 November 2024 to explore the integration of trade-related measures into the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and sector strategies. The event, organized in collaboration with UNCTAD, brought together key government stakeholders and private sector representatives to address the intersection of trade and climate action.
The consultations aimed to leverage trade as a strategic tool to support The Gambia’s climate goals and low carbon economic diversification objective. Discussions focused on identifying climate-strategic trade sectors and actionable trade-related measures for inclusion in the country’s climate and sectoral strategies.
Highlights from the Consultations
- UNCTAD Methodology and Capacity Building: Participants underscored the relevance of UNCTAD’s methodology for integrating trade into NDCs and emphasized the importance of capacity-building initiatives to enable stakeholders to implement this approach effectively.
- Inter-Ministerial Coordination: The need for continuous coordination and dialogue between trade and environment ministries was highlighted as crucial for ensuring policy coherence and maximizing the impact of trade-related climate measures.
- Climate-Strategic Trade Sectors: Stakeholders identified agro-processing, sustainable tourism, and low-carbon transportation among a set of priority trade sectors with significant potential to support The Gambia’s climate and development goals.
- Proposed Trade Measures: A set of trade-related measures was formulated, focusing on these key sectors, for consideration in future NDC updates and sectoral strategy development. One proposed set of measures combines the decarbonisation of the fish processing value chain through renewable energy deployment and improved waste management practices with the use of fish waste to produce fertilizer. These actions would simultaneously lower the carbon footprint associated with a key export sector and an important imported input, while supporting local value addition.
The conclusions and recommendations from the consultations were jointly endorsed by the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Environment for consideration during the NDC 3.0 formulation process.
