Creating green jobs

The National Beekeepers Association of The Gambia (NBAG), headquartered at Nyambai Forest Park in the West Coast region, represents 8,500 beekeepers – 4,400 women and 4,100 men – making it one of the country’s most influential nature based enterprise platforms.

With support from the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), NBAG has advanced beekeeping as a pathway for dignified youth employment and local enterprise development across the West Coast and Lower River regions.

Through its work with smallholders, NBAG identified a critical challenge: in rural communities, young people face scarce employment options, increasing climate pressures and unstable market prospects.

While beekeeping offered real economic potential, many young people lacked the technical knowledge, equipment or market connections required to enter and sustain the sector. NBAG recognised that targeted investment in youth capacity could convert this gap into a viable opportunity.

Forest and Farm Facility activities

With FFF support, NBAG designed and launched a focused apprenticeship programme to equip young people with practical beekeeping and enterprise skills. FFF funding covered apprenticeship training, field mentorship, starter toolkits and group business clinics, ensuring new skills translated directly into income generating activities.

NBAG trained 25 young people through an intensive hands on curriculum covering hive construction with local materials, installation and maintenance of top bar and Langstroth hives, apiary siting, colony management, safe harvesting, quality control and enterprise planning.

Apprentices also learnt sustainable management practices such as establishing firebreaks, planting shade trees and providing water points to maintain colony health and productivity.

To build entrepreneurial confidence, NBAG facilitated group business clinics on pricing, recordkeeping, customer management and contract negotiation. Several youth groups secured supply agreements with producer associations and traders, while others combined hive fabrication with maintenance service contracts – creating recurring income streams.

Early profits were reinvested into protective equipment, extractors and basic packaging and branding materials.

Young women and men were intentionally prioritised through community based selection processes targeting unemployed or school leaving youth. This ensured their active involvement in hive fabrication, apiary management and enterprise operations – positioning them as central actors in the expanding beekeeping value chain.

Significance of impact

The programme has created 25 green jobs across two regions, reducing rural to urban migration and enabling young people to work locally. Within months of completing the apprenticeship, trainees were building and selling hives, providing maintenance services and managing their own apiaries.