Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in The Gambia
Located in West Africa, and The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa. It stretches 400 kilometers along the Gambia River. Its sole neighbor is Senegal, with the remainder of the country bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Gambia’s total...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/589961594971124658/Measuring-Inequality-of-Opportunities-in-the-Gambia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34340 |
| Summary: | Located in West Africa, and The Gambia
is the smallest country in mainland Africa. It stretches 400
kilometers along the Gambia River. Its sole neighbor is
Senegal, with the remainder of the country bordering the
Atlantic Ocean. The Gambia’s total land area is 10,689
square kilometers, with a population density of 208 persons
per square kilometer of land area, ranking it the eighth
highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The average population
density in SSA is 50 persons per square kilometer of land
area. The country’s estimated population was 2.1 million in
2017, with 60.6 percent residing in urban areas; however,
the population of the largest city accounts for 33.9 percent
of the urban population. Annual population growth remains
high at 3.0 percent in 2017, with a faster growth in urban
areas compared to rural areas, 4.1 percent and 1.3 percent,
respectively. The Gambia has experienced decades of volatile
growth. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita started to
increase during the first decade of the twenty-first
century, before beginning a downward trend. The average real
GDP per capita growth between 2000 and 2009 was about 0.6
percent, with a drop in 2002 to a low, 6.2 percent. The GDP
per capita growth increased from US$515.30 in 1990 to about
US$562.50 in 2010, but it has declined since then. The
economy is driven by agriculture and tourism sectors and has
experienced some shocks in recent times. The agricultural
sector was affected by inadequate rainfall and tourism was
shaken by the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and
Guinea. The role of remittances is significant and has grown
by approximately 150 percent since 2011; remittances
accounted for 15.3 percent of GDP in 2017, the
second-largest share in GDP in Africa and the seventh
largest worldwide. |
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