By: Dawda M Jallow
The Association of Non-Governmental Organisations(TANGO) has signed a contract for the construction of a CSO House in the Upper River Region (URR).
The project is being bankrolled by the Ministry of Gender and the United Nations Population Funds.
Speaking at the signing ceremony held at TANGO office on Thursday, the Executive Director of TANGO, Ndey SirengBakurin, said: ‘’This is an important day for us because it is all about the decentralization. We will be starting with Basse, which is the farthest region in The Gambia. This project has three areas which we are working on, that’s Upper River Region, Lower River Region and West Coast Region. We thank the governor of URR and his team who allocated land through the ministry of Gender and UNFPA for providing the resources to us.”
Joy Michael, UNFPA representative said the project is geared towards institutional strengthening for all Civil Society Organisations in The Gambia to be able to engage effectivelyin addressing human rights in The Gambia.
For her part, Yadicon Njie Eribo, the chairperson of TANGO stated that they will be working hand in glove to improve the conditions of CSOs in The Gambia and not allowing it to shrink.
‘’We must be action-oriented. It has been said and we are seeing that the space for civil society has been shrinking and we are not going to allow it to shrink. We are actually going to make it out. This is the Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI) 2.O project to show that we are responding to gender needs in the country as we always advocate,’’ she stated.
Lamin Jaiteh, deputy governor of URR and Fatou Sey, representative of the Ministry of Gender both highlighted the significance of the signing ceremony, describing it as a historic event.
