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BackgroundThe coexistence of under- and overnutrition is of increasing public health concern in The Gambia. Fruits, vegetables and pulses are essential to healthy and sustainable diets, preventing micronutrient deficiencies and non-communicable diseases, while cereals significantly contribute to energy intake. However, environmental changes are predicted to intensify, reducing future yields of these crops if agricultural productivity and resilience are not improved. The Gambia is highly climate-vulnerable and import-dependent, but the extent of its reliance on other climate-vulnerable countries for its supply of nutritionally important crops is currently unknown.MethodsWe used United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization data, with novel origin-tracing algorithms applied, to analyse The Gambia's supply of cereals, fruits, vegetables and pulses between 1988 and 2018. The climate vulnerability of countries was assessed using Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) index scores, and projected water stress (2040) assessed using World Resources Institute (WRI) scores. Multilevel generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to identify changes in the overall climate vulnerability and projected water stress of supply.ResultsBetween 1988 and 2018, The Gambia's supply of cereals, fruits, vegetables and pulses diversified, with the proportion domestically produced falling (Cereals: 61.4%–27.7%; Fruits: 93.0%–55.7%; Vegetables: 24.6%–16.3%; Pulses: 100.0%–76.0%). The weighted-average ND-GAIN scores improved (indicating less climate vulnerability) for supply of all crops except cereals, but the weighted-average WRI score for supply deteriorated (indicating increased projected water stress) for all crops except vegetables. When just considering imports, weighted-average ND-GAIN scores deteriorated for fruits and cereals while showing no significant change for other food groups, and the WRI score deteriorated for cereals only.ConclusionsDespite some notable improvements in the environmental vulnerability of The Gambia's supply of nutritionally important crops (particularly vegetables), considerable, and in some cases increasing, proportions of their supply are produced in countries that are vulnerable to climate change and future water stress. This may have implications for the availability, affordability, and hence consumption of these crops in The Gambia, ultimately exacerbating existing nutritional challenges. Exploring the options to strengthen supply resilience—such as altering trade patterns, agricultural techniques and diets—should be prioritized.

Climate change and environmental degradation are among the greatest threats to human health. Youth campaigners have very effectively focused global attention on the crisis, however children from the Global South are often under-represented (sometimes deliberately) in the dialogue. In The Gambia, West Africa, the impacts of climate change are already being directly experienced by the population, and this will worsen in coming years. There is strong government and community commitment to adapt to these challenges, as evidenced by The Gambia currently being the only country on target to meet the Paris agreement according to the Nationally Determined Contributions, but again children's voices are often missing—while their views could yield valuable additional insights. Here, we describe a “Climate Change Solutions Festival” that targeted and engaged school children from 13 to 18 years, and is to our knowledge, the first peer-to-peer (and student-to-professional) learning festival on climate change solutions for students in The Gambia. The event gave a unique insight into perceived climate change problems and scalable, affordable and sometimes very creative solutions that could be implemented in the local area. Logistical and practical methods for running the festival are shared, as well as details on all solutions demonstrated in enough detail to be duplicated. We also performed a narrative review of the most popular stalls to explore the scientific basis of these solutions and discuss these in a global context. Overall, we find extremely strong, grass-roots and student engagement in the Gambia and clear evidence of learning about climate change and the impacts of environmental degradation more broadly. Nevertheless, we reflect that in order to enact these proposed local solutions further steps to evaluate acceptability of adoption, feasibility within the communities, cost-benefit analyses and ability to scale solutions are needed. This could be the focus of future experiential learning activities with students and partnering stakeholders.