The agriculture sectors in the Gambia employ roughly 70 percent of the population and generate 33 percent of GDP. The major crops consist of maize, sorghum, rice, millet, groundnuts and cotton. Crop production is dependent on rain-fed agriculture, making it vulnerable to rainfall variability. Besides shifting precipitation patterns, sea level rise threatens to inundate forest and mangrove areas and increase salinity levels in the River Gambia estuary.

To tackle these challenges the Government of The Gambia is working hard on climate change adaptation interventions, and welcomes the support of the NAP-Ag Programme in mainstreaming the planning of adaptation strategies into national planning and budgeting processes. 

The Gambia has been working to formulate a comprehensive transformational national adaptation plan (NAP), led by the Department of Water under the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources. In 2007, the country submitted its National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), which considered short- to medium-term needs and identified gaps and vulnerabilities. The Gambia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UNFCCC in 2015 contains a section on adaptation but the document specifies that a comprehensive adaptation investment plan would be developed separately. In 2018, the large-scale Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) project funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and supported by UN Environment, was launched in The Gambia, spearheading major efforts at conservation, sustainable utilisation of resources, and development of rural enterprises.

NAP-Ag activities in the Gambia focus on; (1) strengthening individual and institutional coordination and capacities on hydroclimate information and gender-sensitive NAP process for agricultural sectors; (2) updating and mobilizing resources for the NAP roadmap, including sensitizating climate-sensitive budgeting and reviewing and updating the Agriculture and Natural Resources policy and The Gambia National Agriculture Investment Plan; (3) improving evidence-based results for NAPs through training on cost-benefit analysis and monitoring and evaluation of gender-sensitive adaptation options in agricultural sectors; and (4) outreach, knowledge-sharing and advocacy on NAPs.