In September 2005, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) issued a report on ""Re-thinking the Role of Foreign Direct Land Investment in Gambia.” The report makes some startling revelations but its central thesis is that African nations are gaining very little from FDI and that the hope that foreign investment could be the key to development on the continent had not been realised. 

The report calls on African governments to critically re-evaluate the size and impact of FDI in their countries.  It also asks for a rethinking of the one-sided emphasis on attracting FDI (an investor friendly bias) and replacing it with a more balanced and strategic approach tailored to the specific conditions and challenges of the economic conditions in the African countries.  The purpose of this article is to stimulate such a process of re-thinking and hopefully generate new ideas as to how best to deal with overseas investments in this country.

A good starting point must be a review of the kinds of advice that we have had from international financial and development institutions and some bilateral agencies as to the best conditions that we need to create locally to attract investment from abroad.  Advice from the UN system comes mainly from UNCTAD but also from UNIDO and the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.  Advice also comes from the World Bank and, to a lesser degree, the Commonwealth Secretariat and a number of bilateral agencies from industrialised countries.  Like all advice, some of it is good for this country but some of it is not.

In devising the regulatory and promotional framework for foreign direct investment, the Government sought help from the World Bank in establishing the National Investment Board (1982).  This outfit was to be a one-stop shop set up to simplify investment approval and to promote and publicise investment opportunities in The Gambia.  The advice to us and to other African states was that we should liberalise our foreign investment regimes.  In Africa, between 1982 and 1987, about half of all African countries either introduced or made adjustments to their investment codes (UNCTAD, 1995) to attract more FDI. This process continued well into the 1990s.  The mantra was liberalisation of FDI.  The Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) of the World Bank became the key international agency that promoted this new doctrine.