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Kanifing is a municipality, local government area and district in the Gambia. It is part of the Greater Banjul Area, to the west of Banjul, and is governed by Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC).
The population of Kanifing expanded in the post-colonial era, and it is now one of the country's most-densely populated places and its second most-populated district. It received many migrants from the rest of the Gambia and abroad.
Kanifing is the economic centre of the Gambia, and Serekunda is its largest population center. Tourism is a major industry, and here are several higher education institutes, including the University of the Gambia.
In 1840, France ceded a area that was called British Kombo and was later renamed Kombo St. Mary. It annexed another French cession in 1853. Kombo St. Mary was part of the Gambia Colony. The Protectorate Ordinances, which was passed between 1894 and 1902, transferred Kombo St. Mary to the administration of the Gambia Protectorate. It returned to the Gambia Colony in 1946. The local government area (LGA) of Kombo St. Mary was created in the 1960s from part of the Brikama LGA, and was the eighth LGA to be established. Kombo Rural Authority was renamed Kanifing Urban District Council in 1974 and Kanifing Municipal Council in 1991.
Kanifing grew significantly in the post-colonial era. This was largely caused by immigration from nearby countries; in 1993, foreign nationals made up 20% of the LGA's population. Kanifing's growth led to an increase in the country's urbanisation rate from 23% in 1973 to 37% in 1993. This expansion led to higher property values and foreign investment.
The 2024 Census revealed a population of 379,348 - virtually unchanged since 2013. The sex ratio is 1:1 and the mean household size is 6.7. There are 40,367 people (11.63% of the population) in poverty, 3,340 (1.0%) in extreme poverty, and 117,648 (33.9%) in Food security.
The predominantly rural Mandinka people moved to cities in the post-colonial era. Kanifing's share of the Gambia's Mandinka population increased from 3% in 1963 to 16% in 1993. In 1993, Kanifing had about a third of the country's Jola people, about a quarter of Soninke people, nearly a third of Serer people, and the majority of Aku people. It had nearly half of the country's Christians.
The population has grown through both internal migration and immigration, being home in 2013 to 30% of the Gambia's immigrants and 35% of the country's internal migrants. The total number of immigrants was 33,790, of whom 34% were from Senegal and 25% were from Guinea.
In Kanifing and Banjul, the Wolof language is spoken as a lingua franca in multi-ethnic groups, rather than Mandinka as in the rest of the country.
| + Settlements in Kanifing |
| 4345 |
| 26687 |
| 2195 |
| 6594 |
| 41369 |
| 15081 |
| 2563 |
| 12744 |
| 4416 |
| 4419 |
| 22902 |
| 11289 |
| 4800 |
| 21656 |
| 8480 |
| 18901 |
| 19773 |
The Deputy Mayor of KMC is Binta Janneh Jallow, who is the first woman to hold the position. Jallow, who was previously the ward councillor of Bakau New Town, was appointed to the post in July 2021 to replace Pa Musa Bah, who had resigned.
, the Crime Management Coordinator of KMC is Pateh Bah, who has held the position since its creation in 2017 by the Adama Barrow administration.
The Law Court Complex in Bundung houses the High Court, the Magistrates Court, and the Qadi Court. Kanifing Magistrates Court functions as the Children's Court on Tuesdays and Thursdays, despite the constitution providing for a full-time juvenile court.
Of the LGA's 251,712 people who are 15 or older, 122,726 are in the labour force, including 108,474 who are employed and 14,252 who are unemployed. The unemployment rate among workers aged 15 to 35 is 6.5%, relatively low for the Gambia, although within this age range over 20% of those with higher education are unemployed. Child labour affects 3.5% of children aged 5–11, 9.7% aged 12–14, and 14.6% aged 15–17.
Bensouda's government has planned an affordable housing project to build 8,000 homes.
Bakoteh Dumpsite, the largest landfill in the country, collects all waste from the Greater Banjul Area. It was created as part of a defunct mining operation. It is overfilled and does not have modern disposal systems. It is located in a densely populated area near Bakoteh, Dippa Kunda and Manjai Kunda. The dumpsite's environmental impacts include methane fires, water contamination, and odour. The city hires bulldozers to transport waste to the dump but it is sometimes blocked by waterlogging in the rainy season. Many residents of the area around the dumpsite make a living from informal recycling. KMC has planned to establish a new dumpsite and turn the old one into a transfer station. In 2021, it conducted a pilot program to compost the organic waste in the dump and convert it to biofuel.
The Mbalit project (meaning waste in Wolof) collects household waste; it assigns each ward a garbage truck that collects waste from each household weekly. It uses a digital ticket system to pay for the service. Informal waste collectors use donkey-drawn carts to collect waste from households that are not covered by the project. In 2022, KMC estimated it collected 460 tons of waste per day, of which 57.5% came from households, though this data is imprecise. The city has 370 waste management workers, of whom 227 are under the ESU and 143 are under the Mbalit project, .
Bensouda called waste management his number-one priority as mayor. KMC developed a five-year waste management plan (2017 to 2021) in consultation with the community and the private sector. It focussed on public awareness, new waste-sorting strategies, expanded household waste collection, job creation, and partnerships with informal waste management. It created the Mbalit project, the first household-waste-collection programme in the Gambia. With a grant from the European Union, Bensouda launched the Kanifing Environmental Transformation Programme (KETP), which donated waste-collection equipment to the initiative. It set up 10 communal and reduced the number of illegal dumpsites from 65 to 17. The programme's success improved the government's image.
Construction of Kanifing's library began on 18 August 2022. It will be the country's first municipal library. It is an initiative of Bensouda and the KETP, with funding from Peterborough City Council in England. The project cost 45 million Gambian dalasi.
Madison has provided funding for Kanifing's garbage trucks and its public library.
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