As the World commemorates International Women’s Day on March 8, 2022, the National Audit Office on its part, held an in-house activity to celebrate its female staff and to recognize their contribution in the fulfillment of the mandate of the office. The event included remarks from the Deputy Auditor General 1 (Mr. Pa Majagne Ndow) who gave the official opening speech and shared words of encouragement to the female staff. In his remarks, Mr. Ndow highlighted the efforts being made by the office for greater gender inclusion. He reiterated that the Management of the office is in full support of initiatives that will lead to empowering women, and encouraged female staff to keep up the hard work in the execution of their respective duties in the office. He concluded that the office as part of its core mandate as the Supreme Audit Institution of the country is also planning to conduct gender-related audits and has already included the development of a gender, diversity and inclusion policy in its annual operational plan.

Remarks were also made by the Gender focal person of the office (Ms. Aminata Sanyang) who highlighted that she is happy and fortunate to be part of participants who took part in a three-stage process of developing the 2020-2024 Strategic Development Plan of the office; from where both staff and management identified outcomes, outputs, and capacities for each priority areas including identification of a gender, diversity and inclusion policy. Aminata further spoke about some of the challenges being faced by female staff, as well as progress made by management in addressing some of the gender-related requests. In her conclusion, she took the opportunity to encourage all female staff to actively participate in the upcoming activities by the gender group for it to achieve the set goals.

A keynote address was shared by the guest speaker for the event (Mrs. Sukai Mbye – Bojang) who is a retired public servant, and currently working as Director, Educational Services Enterprise. Mrs. Bojang shared that she is impressed by the NAO’s focal person’s remarks and congratulated the NAO for the progress made on its gender equality efforts – referencing to the large number of female staff of the NAO.

She made reference to statistics issued by the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) which shows that there are more women than men, but that other researches have shown that in terms of employment, more men are employed, compared to women. She added that women from all backgrounds should be economically empowered so that they can reach their full potential and contribute to nation building. She made references to challenges women who aspire for leadership positions face and called for women to show solidary with one another through a #Sister4ASister campaign.

After the keynote speech, staff took turns to give or other stories on women who inspire them. This was followed by closing remarks from NAO’s Senior Manager, Human Resources and Administration (Amang Sanneh). Mr. Sanneh shared that some of the testimonies narrated by colleagues signal there is hope and promise; and that the future is nothing without female. He also stated that recognizing women is an ongoing process and something we all do daily.

Mr. Sanneh further stated that the NAO places great value upon its human capital of which 46% are women. He added that Management has also realized the potential of its work force and will hence work tirelessly in ensuring their welfare is given high consideration at all times. He concluded that the introduction of a gender, diversity and inclusion policy will go a long way in harnessing career growth for the women of NAO.