About WASDA

The Wuli and Sandu Districts form the northern part of Upper River Region (URR) The Gambia. The River Gambia is the boundary between URR North and south, to the west Sandugu Bolong forms the boundary between Sandu West and Sami District Central River Region (CRR) North. Wuli and sandu districts are also bounded by Senegal in the North as well as Eastern part of Wuli. Being at the far end of The Gambia it has been very difficult for development activity in the area to attract donors, despite the fact that almost 50% of the population is classified as Extremely poor (Strategy for poverty alleviation, SPACO 2003), this is due to the poor road network, very unstable mobile network coverage, very few villages with few land phones and no National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) operational coverage. Sometimes it is even difficult to get qualified personnel in the area due to its remoteness.

The majority of people in the area are subsistence farmers who rely heavily on rain fed farming. The main cash crop is groundnut, the value of groundnuts on the world market has dropped substantially in the past few years and farmers now struggle to sell their crops at a profitable rate .There are no processing plants in the area and the only bulk buyer is the government cooperative which sets its own prices. There are few opportunities for employment in the area and the cash economy is not strong.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s there was an Organization called CUSO (Canadian Universities Services Overseas) operating in the area, covering twelve villages (12) in Wuli and Sandu under a programme called north Bank Development Programme.

Their intervention area was vegetable gardening for nutrition and income generation, Skills development for Black smiths and capacity building of village development committee. And at the end of 1992 CUSO, the only operating NGO in the area indicated their intention to pull out of the Gambia.

This brought the idea of setting up an apex body by the north bank development programme partners to consolidate and sustain the already implemented projects in the area.

After a series of meetings between CUSO officials and partners to debate the issue, the concept was understood and agreed upon by the partners. The first name given to the organization was area development committee (ADC); In August 1993 this was changed to Wuli and Sandu Development agency (WASDA) at a meeting held in Jaakunda where the executive committee was selected to start the ball rolling.