By Seedy Jobe
The Gambia’s youth and sports minister, Bakary Y. Badjie, has identified unemployment as one of the main factors pushing young Gambians toward irregular migration, saying a lack of desirable job opportunities continues to lead some to undertake dangerous journeys across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaking in an interview on The Dialect Space Podcast, Mr. Badjie said the challenges confronting Gambian youth were complex and could not be attributed to unemployment alone. Limited resources, as well as what he described as problems of mindset and attitude, also contribute to the difficulties young people face, he said.
Still, Mr. Badjie acknowledged that unemployment remains among the most pressing challenges.
“Annually, we’re losing a number of young people who attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea or the Sahara Desert because they are not finding the kind of jobs they want in The Gambia,” he said.
The minister pointed to several government programs that he said were intended to expand employment, skills training, and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people.
Among them is increased investment in technical and vocational education and training, commonly known as TVET. Mr. Badjie said President Adama Barrow recently presented about 83 million dalasis in funding to various TVET institutions to support skills training for young people.
He also cited the expansion of the National Youth Service Scheme in 2023 to include a University Graduate Service Programme, which places unemployed university graduates in paid internships for a year. The program is intended to provide participants with practical skills and work experience that could improve their employment prospects.
Mr. Badjie said the initiative had already produced success stories, though he did not provide figures on how many participants had secured permanent employment after completing the program.
The government has also sought to promote entrepreneurship as an alternative to formal employment. Mr. Badjie highlighted the Youth Enterprise Fund, launched by Mr. Barrow in January 2021 through the National Enterprise Development Initiative. The fund provides grants and loans to young entrepreneurs and small-business owners who may struggle to obtain financing from commercial banks.
Another initiative, YouthConnekt, was launched in 2019 and has since been expanded to include an annual business-idea competition, Mr. Badjie said. Young entrepreneurs from across the country compete by presenting business proposals, with winning participants receiving financial support to develop or expand their ventures.
Despite those programs, Mr. Badjie said the government needed to do more, particularly by expanding education and vocational training and creating conditions for greater private-sector investment.
He said addressing irregular migration would require both economic opportunities and a broader change in how young people view their prospects at home. The government, he said, must continue creating employment opportunities and raising awareness, while families and communities should encourage young people to pursue education and acquire marketable skills.
“Yes, you might not have what you want here, but if you take your time, educate yourself, you learn a skill, you can be able to get something better,” he said. “All of us were not born with civil service. We are all struggling. But then we managed to get through life somehow.”
Mr. Badjie said expanding access to education and skills development would remain a government priority. He pointed to the transformation of the Gambia Technical Training Institute into a university focused on applied science, engineering and technology, adding that many students there receive government scholarships.
But training young people, he acknowledged, addresses only one side of the employment problem. The country also needs businesses and industries capable of absorbing a growing pool of skilled workers.
Mr. Badjie said greater industrialization would be necessary to create jobs, but argued that the government’s primary role in The Gambia’s market-based economy was to establish policies and conditions that encourage private investment.
Attracting foreign investors remains difficult, he said, in part because of the country’s small population and economy. Investors seeking larger markets and faster returns may favor bigger economies, he added.
That makes the expansion of domestic businesses particularly important, Mr. Badjie said. He called for greater support for Gambian companies to diversify into new sectors, establish factories and generate employment.
“These are the things that I said, maybe we need to be able to scale up each of these programmes to be able to support the young people,” he said.
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