Electronic Theses and Dissertation

ABSTRACT

The Gambia is a vulnerable country to disasters because of its geographical location
and economic strength. The Gambia faces harsh climatic conditions, due to its location
within the Sahel belt as an area of transition between the Sahara desert in the northern
African Continent and the Sudanian savanna in the southern part. As the severity and
incidence of disasters in the Gambia are rising, disaster management needs more
supports. These include utilizing Local and Indigenous Knowledge (LINK). However,
researches on LINK in the Gambia related to disaster risk reduction are limited and still
difficult to assess. This research aimed at identifying local and indigenous knowledge
of the coastal people of the Gambia and explaining, validating, and categorizing the
local and indigenous knowledge identified. This study adopted qualitative research
using an in-depth interview with the help of the snowball research method approach.
Out of the three regions interviewed, eight informants were interviewed in North Bank
and Lower River Region respectively. Six informants were from the West Coast
Region in three various coastal communities. This gave a total informant of fourteen.
All this was aimed to capture the three districts in the Gambia. The respondents were
either male or female who fifty years old or older. The data collected was context
analyzed to provide information for the discussion. The result of this research shows
that there are series of LINKs related to disaster risk reduction within the local people
of the study communities and some of the LINKs are scientific-related while others are
not. This research also gave some recommendations for the relevant stakeholders to
prioritize the use of LINK in DRR activities in The Gambia.

Keywords: Local and Indigenous knowledge, Coastal Communities, Validation,
Categorization, Disaster Risk Reduction,

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