Publication: Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in The Gambia
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Date
2019-02
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2019-02
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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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“Mungai, Rose; Okiya, Stephen. Scherer, Lauri, editors. 2019. Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in The Gambia. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34340 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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