Sheriff Kora
Introduction
Timothy Snyder in his epic work On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons of the Twentieth Century
remarked that “If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and
inevitability will destroy it. And to make history, they need to know some.” It is as a
result of this knowledge that I have decided to share parts of my thesis focused on the
economic development history of The Gambia from 1950 to 2015. During my research,
one of the biggest challenges I faced was the paucity of data and economic development
literature on our country’s economic development history. This is a common theme
among many ex-colonies especially in the early decades leading to independence and
shortly after. As a result, it is befitting to give credit to pioneers such as Tijan Sallah,
Harry Gailey, President Jawara, Ambassador Dr. Ebraima Manneh, Burama L.J. Jammeh
etc. without whose research work I used extensively in achieving this work.
For the sake of brevity, this article is only a synopsis of my research work, and is by no
means exhaustive of the development history that took place in this decade. This article
aims to contextualize the pre-independence development history of The Gambia between
1950 and 1959. It will attempt to highlight the indigenous and external actors within the
context of the development theories and strategies, the international system, donor
policies and programs of the era that drove the economic development ethos of the
country.
Country Overview
The Gambia is the smallest Anglophone countries in West Africa. The country
stretches about two hundred miles, and is surrounded on three sides by Francophone
Senegal, and opens to the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth. Unlike other Colonies and
Protectorates of Britain, The Gambia was the least endowed in matters of mineral
resources. However, it has the most navigable waterways in West Africa, which made it a
convenient and lucrative gateway for the Atlantic Slave trade. It is her strategic location
and the desire of the British to deprive the French political control of the river that the
boundaries of the colony were carved without regard to ethnicity or geographic
considerations.
As a means of saving cost and enhancing administrative efficacy, The Gambia,
under the indirect rule system was partitioned into a colony and a protectorate. A
Governor who was appointed by the colonial office in London administered the colony;
the protectorate before the introduction of divisional commissioners was indirectly
administered through the traditional chiefs. With an area of sixy-nine square miles and a
population of about 30,000 inhabitants, the colony was the seat of the capital Barthurst
and covered the area of Kombo St. Mary; the protectorate on the other hand covered an
area of over four thousand square miles with an average population of about 237,000.
By 1950, The Gambia was seriously underdeveloped, and agriculture was still the
basis of her economic life. Unlike the other colonies such as Senegal and others in the
sub-region that witnessed economic growth as a result of industrialization and
reallocation of labor from agriculture to the higher productivity non-agricultural sector,
the Gambia witnessed no significant economic growth or development from low scale
agriculture to the industrial sector. Without any other appreciable mineral resources, The
Gambia lagged behind in economic and social development. The colony was exposed to
the shocks of price fluctuations on the world market during this period. As a British
entity, the depth and breadth of The Gambia’s development between 1950 and 1959 was
driven largely by the colonial policies of that era. Most of the economic and social
development projects undertaken in The Gambia in this period derived from the policy
shift and attitude of the British Empire towards her overseas territories at the conclusion
of the Second World War. Trusteeship was constructively by the colonial office to
promote the welfare of the colonies.
Whether this was out of goodwill or imperial interest has been subject to debate.
However, the paradigm shift in colonial development policy has to be examined in the
context of events and the global actors at the onset and end of WWII. Development of the
colonies was not only a bid to impress public opinion in the wake of nationalism or to
counter Nazi argument of paternalistic neglect by Britain, but to guard against the
possibility of internationalization of the colonies at the end of the of the war. Colonial
economic development was also a strategy of the British government to improve colonial
infrastructure and institutions in order to retain and increase exports of commodities that
would have been hard to acquire from hard currency countries. Britain was determined to
alleviate the balance of payment deficit with the dollar area and to tackle the ‘dollar gap’
problem in the 1950s.
The birth of the United Nations in 1947 coupled with the Truman Doctrine that
espoused bettering the conditions of overseas possessions of all colonial masters as a
deterrent of communist encroachment were two other important incentives that set the
ball rolling for economic and social development in the British colonies. The Bretton
Woods system and the institutional underpinnings of the United Nations such as the Food
and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO)
gave technical assistance in the development of The Gambia in the 1950’s.
The combination of these politico-economic pressures and the expedience of the
British Colonial officials was the genesis of Colonial Development and Welfare Act of
1940 which mandated the Colonial Development and Welfare funds that were geared
towards creation or improvement of social services and public works and utilities in the
colonies. Colonies were seen as a viable source of dollar revenue through the triangular
trade model under the Marshall plan; consequently, the economic policy was drawn into
this strategy and the economic crisis of the post-war period shaped the way in which the
overseas development policies were implemented.
Two institutions were created to oversee the development goals of the colonial
office, namely: the Colonial Development Corporation and the Overseas Food
Corporation. As the names suggest, the former was charged with developing mineral
resources, improving communications, developing waterpower, electricity as well as
producing food and other agricultural products. The former had the sole powers of food
production for export to the United Kingdom. The colonial development policy in The
Gambia like elsewhere in the sterling group was yoked between two theories centered on
goodwill and imperial interest: modernization theory on the periphery, and the
dependency theory at the core.
Colonial Infrastructural Development
The financial plight and development trajectory of The Gambia in the 1950s is a
consequence of the colonial development policies leading to the 1940’s and how they
were applied. Despite the attractive outlook of the colonial development scheme, until the
end of the 1940’s, they were executed on a policy that each colony regardless of size
should be economically self-sufficient and not to be a charge on the Treasury of the
metropolitan country. Capital development projects were expected to be funded directly
out of the budget surpluses of the colonies from the export market boom of the war years
and later from the industry demands of the Korean War. However, the meager earnings of
monoculture countries such as The Gambia and the Seychelles Islands were unable to
carry out the physical improvement investments in school, bridges, hospitals etc. This
gave enough compulsion to the colonial office to pump in capital from the Colonial
Welfare and Development funds towards financing development projects.
Prior to the 1950’s development projects, the Colonial Development Corporation
undertook a large scale mechanized agricultural project in the 1940’s to cultivate and
harvest rice mechanically in Walikunda – in the hinterlands. The second project was the
Yundum Egg Scheme. After a hefty financial investment from the Colonial Development
and Welfare funds, both projects, which were thought to be profitable ventures, turned
out to be a disaster.The high sunk cost that followed the unsuccessful economic
experiments of the Colonial Development Corporation in the Walikunda rice project and
the Yundum Egg Scheme between 1947 and 1951 were glaring examples of projects that
failed due to corruption, mismanagement, and the lack of human capital necessary for
driving sustainable development of the Gambian colony. With the British public
perception that the economic situation in The Gambia was a drain on the colonial
Treasury the arrival of the Conservative Labor Party in 1951 prompted a risk aversion
stance when it came to development investment for overly dependent countries like The
Gambia.
These failures not only “convinced private and government investors that little
potential gain would accrue from development projects there”, they made the Governors
and other colonial officials reluctant at requesting funding for development projects to
improve agriculture, develop the harbor, airport of improve land and water
communication. Consequently, investment as witnessed in other colonies tended to
by-pass The Gambia. This will have far reaching consequences on The Gambia’s
post-war development history in the 1950’s and leading to its independence from Britain
in 1965. Between 1946 and 1958, The Gambia received a total of 1,240 million pounds
from the Colonial Development and Welfare funds . 1,058,800 was spent on colony
improvements of which 976,340 pounds was grants from the Colonial Development and
Welfare grants; the remainder was to be raised by the Government.
The major service departments of the colonial government were Agriculture,
Public Works, Marine, Education, and Public Health. The bulk of funds were allocated
for social development schemes in expanding education and health. Communication also
received a huge proportion in the 1950’s most of which went on road and bridge
construction, transportation etc. Economic development expenditure was primarily
centered on agriculture improvement and marketing. This was the period when a new
bridge and a high school were built in addition to water supply improvement and a street
drainage system for Barthurst. Despite the development bias that existed previously
between the colony and the protectorate, the protectorate areas received a sum of
£583,290 towards the construction of a rural asphalt road from the provincial
administrative seat of Brikama to Mansa Konko in this era.
In addition to construction of the asphalt road between Brikama and Mansa
Konko in 1955, the bridge at Pakali Ba was also constructed in the same period. The river
transport system was also revamped as a recommendation from the Blackburne Report,
which recommended development of building deep-water wharves in the capital
Barthurst and service wharves in up country river ports to link the protectorate with the
ocean. The capital was outfitted with two wharves and the groundnut ports of Kaur and
Kuntaur were also improved. A new river transport called Lady Wright, and a few old
hand operated ferries were procured to facilitate crossing along the banks of the river
Gambia. However, most of the equipment were old and ineffective, and unfortunately, the
ferry between the Barthurst – Barra crossing points capsized in 1957 claiming the lives of
over fifty people.
Health
Between 1950 and 1959, there were only two hospitals in The Gambia – The
Royal Victoria and Bansang Hospitals. Prior to 1938, there was no hospital in the
protectorate until the construction of a new hospital in Bansang, which served the entire
protectorate population of over a quarter million people. The medical services in the
colony were better than the ones in the protectorate. In 1953, the hospital in Barthurst
was replaced by the Colonial Welfare Development fund into a new facility called the
Royal Victoria Hospital. The biggest public health challenge of the period was mosquito
borne diseases such as Malaria and Yellow fever. This menace was relatively mild in the
Barthurst area where there were proper control measures in place. However, mosquito
borne diseases were prevalent in the protectorate where investigations have estimated the
infant mortality rate to exceed five hundred per thousand live births.
The caloric intake and diet of the average Gambian was very low with little or no
protein. The average Gambian ate less vegetables and the staple rice was of low
nutritional value. Sleeping sickness, yaws, intestinal worms and malnutrition were all
endemic in the 1950’s Gambia. The medical and public health facilities of The Gambia in
1950 were also met by challenges of new drug shortage and the inadequacy of staff with
the proper medical training to serve the population. There was also the traditional
constraint of locals who were often unwilling to consult with Western trained doctors.
The vast distance and inaccessibility of medical facilities meant critically ill or injured
patients in outlying villages often died before they reached the hospital.
Education
In the area of education, the Government at the turn of the century did very little
investment. The policy of the colonial administration was to disassociate itself from
educating the people and to delegate the responsibility of education entirely in the hands
of missionaries. Educational development in this period was guided by the
recommendation a Government appointed commission in 1950 spearheaded by T.H.
Baldwin. By 1950, there was only a handful of primary school largely concentrated in the
colony. There were only four secondary schools in the entire country: St. Augustine’s and
St. Joseph’s run by the Catholic mission, and Armitage High and Gambia High schools
were government operated schools. There was very little investment in vocational or
agricultural training. The school curriculum was designed to teach the basic arithmetic,
reading and writing skills needed for carrying the clerical duties of the colonial
administration. There was no advanced education beyond the secondary school level. The
few Gambians with the means often travelled overseas to further their studies, and never
returned. This was the beginning of the Gambian brain drain and the problem of human
capacity development to improve the educational system.
However, the colonial administration undertook development of post-secondary
education when it purchased the abandoned buildings at the Yundum egg scheme, and
transformed it into the Yundum Teachers Training College in 1952. Although expenditure
in education has increased from less than £30,000 in 1948 to £124,000 in 1958,
enrollment in schools were generally low and primarily restricted to only boys. Schools
were disproportionately centered in the colony partly due to the stiff opposition from
many of the traditional rulers in the protectorate.
Following the low development of education in the 1950’s was the problem of
low human capital and the shortage of adequately trained Gambians to fill the important
administrative positions. By the end of 1948, there were seventeen Gambians in the civil
service compared to seventy-nine expatriates. However, due to the revolution of
education in the 1950’s, by 1959, there were fifty-three Gambians in all cadres of the
civil service compared to sixty-seven expatriates. It is important to note that the
Gambianization of the civil service did not gain steam until in 1963 when Gambians were
clamoring vigorously for a change in the administrative system.
Trade, Agricultural Exports and Economic Growth
Trade in the 1950’s was characterized by large development of cash crops –
groundnuts in the case of The Gambia that was exported or exchanged for imported
European goods. Thus the economic development investment of the colonial government
in the 1950’s was geared towards improving agriculture and the extractive industry in
The Gambia. Economic development had largely been associated with expansion and
promotion of minor export crops such as peanuts, sesame, cotton, and palm kernel seeds.
Fertilizer consumption, improved irrigation and agricultural machinery under the
‘oxenization’ project were also increased during this era. Gambia’s output of ground-nuts
(in shell) between 1950 and 1958 stand at the following: the country produced 61,000
tons in 1950, 69,000 in 1951, 58,000 in 1952, 63,000 in 1953, 59,000 in 1954, 58,000
tons in 1955, 80, 000 tons in 1956 and 90,000 in 1957. The country also produced 2 tons
of palm Kernels each year except in 1958 when output dropped to a thousand tons.
It is estimated that 98% of all exports from The Gambia were destined for Britain.
The surge in agricultural output and trade was facilitated by the demand and attractive
prices of commodities as a result of post-war reconstruction and the Korean War boom in
1951. Increased in exports in this period rose faster than imports and created a trade
surplus in The Gambia. This was facilitated by the introduction of the Gambia Oilseeds
Marketing Board (GOMB), which sold the groundnut cash crop. Trade licenses were
granted to natives or representatives of transnational firms such as the United Africa
Company and Maurel and Prom to purchase groundnuts from the farmers. Despite the
initial boom in the export trade, The Gambia could not cope with the fluctuations in
market prices, bad harvest and poor quality of nuts. The government ran a deficit of
£150,000 in 1953 that warranted investigation from the Colonial office, which resulted
into the incompletion of many projects. The dwindling of world prices between 1954 and
1955 forced most of the loss to be absorbed by the farmers’ fund, ultimately resulting into
loss earnings to the farmers.
There was very limited foreign direct investment into The Gambian economy, and
with the exception of development aid that came principally from the Colonial Office and
Treasury, the country witnessed a considerable outflow of capital from the few foreign
firms that made up the private sector. The prominent financial institutions in the country
in the 1950’s were the Standard Bank of West Africa and the Banque Centrale du
Commerce et L’industrie. Whilst most of the development initiatives came from the
Government itself, there has been assistance from the FAO which assisted the in the
eradication of the rinderpest disease that was ravaging cattle in the 1950’s. The ILO
visited The Gambia in 1952 in a regional visit to offer technical assistance and to ensure
fair labor practices in the both informal and formal labor sector. The development
literature of the country shows the only notable donors of the era as the Red Cross, which
trained Gambian medical orderlies to staff the health centers. The Anglican, Wesleyan,
Methodist and Catholic missions have had a long-standing presence in the country and
were actively involved in evangelism and education.
Political Development
Politically, the country was still under the colonial domination of the British
Empire with very little to no Gambian representation in policy matters. The protectorate
and the colony were deliberately divided with the former being excluded politically, and
bearing the brunt of taxes and agricultural production for exports. Development was
mostly centered in the colony whilst the protectorate was marginalized. There was a
serious case of inequity and distributive injustice in the 1950’s. In 1950 out of a budget of
over £1,000,000, a paltry sum of £37,000 was disbursed to the protectorate
administration. More money was expended to administer 30,000 in the colony. However,
following the decolonization efforts in 1946, the elections of 1951 was the real beginning
of active political parties and organized nationalism in the country. The democracy envy
that spread across the continent, empowered Gambians to demand more representation in
the colonial legislative council. The constitution was amended in 1953 and 1954. The
first political party the Democratic Party emerged in 1951, and in 1952 the Muslim
Congress Party was created, the United Party followed suit and finally following the
extension of the franchise to the protectorate, the Protectorate People’s Party was formed
in 1959 to represent the interests of the protectorate. A significant economic and political
development of the 1950’s was the emergence of The Gambian Workers Union in 1959.
These were the political forces to lead the country to self-attainment and independence in
the 1960’s.
The development performance of The Gambia in this period was defined by the
very nature of colonialism, its motives and development policies. Economic development
under the distortionary policies of colonialism was geared towards developing the natural
resources of the colonies for extraction and market profit. As a result, being a
monoculture, The Gambia did not provide adequate incentives for any significant
investments into its institutional and infrastructure development. Although there were
slight improvements in the agriculture sector and the public works sectors such as roads
and water communication that served as the lifeblood of the economy, these
improvements were not without their own shortcomings.
Agriculture was labor intensive and distorted gender roles. Women and children
entered into the heavy labor pool with the children deprived of any form of education.
The promotion of the groundnuts, sesame and cotton cash crops created a shift in
agricultural production from horticulture which led to inadequacy of food reserves and
subsequently chronic malnutrition and famine. The development challenges of the 1950
decade will later play a compounding role in the challenges and successes that will be
witnessed in the future development history of the Gambia.
