Bakoteh Dumpsite Transformation
Building wellness from waste
The Bakoteh dumpsite is not a waste management problem. It is a public health emergency, an environmental injustice, and a daily indictment of what decades of inadequate urban governance have produced. The site sits in the heart of one of the most densely populated urban areas in West Africa. Children who live near it breathe contaminated air from the constant burning of waste. The water table beneath it carries toxic leachate into the surrounding soil and into the groundwater that communities depend on. Fires burn unpredictably, sending smoke across schools, markets, and homes. The SOS Children's Village campus sits within reach of its emissions. Residents of Bakoteh and the surrounding Serrekunda area have been asked, implicitly, by every government that has left this site in place, to accept this as the condition of their neighbourhood. The National Builders Party will not ask them to accept it for another day. The site will be closed. It will be remediated. And in its place will stand a park that every Gambian can be proud of.
Where the Bakoteh dumpsite now stands, a park will stand instead. A park with walking trails, playing fields, playgrounds, gardens, and an Environmental Education Centre where children learn what was done here and what was built in its place. Clean air. Green space. Community life. The transformation of Bakoteh is not just an urban development project. It is a statement about the kind of governance the National Builders Party delivers, and the kind of city Serrekunda deserves to be. Every community in The Gambia deserves clean air, safe streets, and beautiful public spaces. Bakoteh Park will stand as a national symbol of transformation: from waste to wellness, from pollution to purpose, from decades of neglect to a future worth building.
The NBP will issue a formal site closure order within the first six months of government, establishing the legal basis for ending all new waste deposition at Bakoteh and triggering the full remediation and transformation programme.
Closure does not mean abandonment. It means the cessation of all new waste deposition, the securing of the full site perimeter, and the commencement of the remediation process. Perimeter fencing, security lighting, and controlled access points will be established immediately upon closure, preventing further unauthorised dumping and securing the remediation area. A fire suppression programme will be implemented before and during remediation to address the ongoing combustion that poses the most immediate air quality threat to surrounding communities. A community notification and health monitoring programme will be launched in the surrounding neighbourhoods from the moment the closure order is issued, establishing the baseline health data against which improvement will be measured after remediation.
The NBP will identify, assess, and construct a new Engineered Sanitary Landfill outside the densely populated urban zones, ensuring that waste currently going to Bakoteh has a safe, properly managed destination from the day the old site closes.
Any solution to Bakoteh that does not provide an alternative waste destination will simply displace the problem rather than solving it. A full Environmental Impact Assessment will identify a site outside densely populated areas that is geologically and hydrologically suitable. The new facility will be built to international engineered landfill standards, including a protective liner system preventing leachate from reaching groundwater, a leachate collection and treatment system, a landfill gas extraction and energy generation system that converts methane from decomposing waste into electricity, controlled access, weigh bridges, and compaction and daily covering operations. The National Solid Waste Management Authority will be established to oversee all waste management infrastructure in The Gambia, starting with the transition from Bakoteh to the new facility.
The NBP will carry out a comprehensive, independently verified environmental remediation of the Bakoteh site, using bioremediation and physical removal to detoxify the land, soil, and groundwater before a single tree or brick of the park is placed.
A site characterisation study, commissioned in Year 1, will assess the depth, extent, and composition of contamination across the full site, providing the technical basis for the Remediation Action Plan. Phase 1 physical remediation will address the most heavily contaminated surface areas. Bioremediation, using bacteria and plants that break down contaminants in the soil, will treat the wider site over a defined period determined by the characterisation findings. Landfill gas extraction wells installed during the remediation phase will capture methane for energy generation, turning a source of air pollution into a source of electricity. An independent environmental consultancy will verify the completion of remediation and certify that the site meets the safety standards required for public recreational use before construction of the park begins.
The NBP will build Bakoteh Park through a community-led design process, ensuring that the park the people of Serrekunda get is the park they helped design, on a site they reclaimed from decades of neglect.
A community design consultation, running in parallel with the remediation programme, will give residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods, youth groups, women's organisations, school children, and local businesses a genuine voice in what the park becomes. The park will include walking and cycling trails shaded by trees, modern playgrounds with safe equipment for children of all ages, community sports areas with basketball courts, mini football pitches, and outdoor workout stations, quiet pavilions and seating areas for study, rest, and reflection, gardens with native plant species that restore biodiversity to the site, and a community market area for small traders. An Environmental Education Centre, inspired by what happened here and what was built in its place, will welcome school visits, community events, and environmental programming throughout the year.
The NBP will expand waste collection coverage across the Greater Banjul Area, because a city that does not collect its waste reliably will always face a Bakoteh in the making, regardless of what is built on this site.
A waste collection coverage audit in Year 1 will map the current state of waste collection across every ward and community in the Greater Banjul Area, identifying the gaps that contribute to illegal dumping in roadsides, drainage channels, and vacant land. Regulated waste collection zones with defined pick-up schedules and community notification systems will be established across the full Greater Banjul Area. Waste segregation at source, beginning with institutional and market premises in Year 2 and extending to households progressively, will reduce the volume of waste going to landfill and increase the material available for recycling and composting. Community recycling drop-off points will be established across the area, and a national recycling and composting facility will open in Year 4. The waste management reform programme will extend to Brikama, Farafenni, and Basse in Year 4, and to all regional capitals by Year 5.
The NBP will extract methane gas from the decomposing waste at Bakoteh and convert it into electricity during the remediation phase, turning the dumpsite's most dangerous emission into a source of clean energy for surrounding communities.
Landfill gas, primarily methane, is generated by the decomposition of organic waste and is both a significant contributor to climate change and an explosive and respiratory health hazard at uncontrolled concentrations. Installing extraction wells during the remediation phase captures this gas before it vents to the atmosphere or accumulates dangerously. The extracted gas will be used to generate electricity through a small-scale landfill gas-to-energy facility, providing a community energy benefit that demonstrates in the most visible way possible that the transformation of Bakoteh generates value rather than merely removing a problem. This aligns with the NBP's broader energy diversification programme and the green fund's focus on climate-beneficial investments. The energy generated will be fed into the national grid or used to power the park facilities once construction is complete.
The NBP will ensure that the Bakoteh transformation creates hundreds of jobs for the surrounding community during construction and through the permanent employment and economic activity that a well-managed urban park generates.
Local residents will be prioritised for employment in the remediation programme, the park construction, and the permanent park management, maintenance, and programming roles that follow. Small traders will have licensed commercial space within the park, creating a community market economy that integrates the park into the economic life of the neighbourhood. An annual Bakoteh Park Community Festival, launched in Year 4 with the park's inauguration, will celebrate the transformation, showcase Gambian culture, and generate the community ownership of the space that makes parks thrive rather than deteriorate. The Environmental Education Centre will employ environmental educators, event coordinators, and programme staff, and will host school visits, community workshops, and national environmental education events year-round.
The National Builders Party will monitor, measure, and publish the health impact of the Bakoteh transformation on the surrounding communities, because the purpose of this project is not a park on a map but better health outcomes for real Gambians who have suffered for too long.
A community health baseline survey, conducted in the surrounding neighbourhoods before closure, will document respiratory health, water quality, and environmental quality indicators that will be tracked through the remediation and into the park's operational years. Groundwater quality monitoring at defined points around the former dumpsite will track the impact of remediation on the contamination that has leached into the local water table over decades. A five-year Bakoteh Transformation Review, published in Year 5, will present the health impact data for surrounding communities against the pre-closure baseline, assess waste management system performance, and document the groundwater quality trends. This is not a project the NBP will complete and forget. It is a commitment that will be measured, reported, and held to account for as long as it matters.
For Bakoteh and Serrekunda Residents
The fires stop. The smoke stops. The odour stops. The toxic leachate stops migrating toward the groundwater your community uses. Your children stop attending school with a burning dumpsite visible from the classroom window. The remediation gives back the air, the soil, and eventually the water quality that this site has been degrading for decades. And in place of the site that has defined your neighbourhood as a place of neglect, a park stands that defines it as a place of renewal.
For Young Gambians
Construction jobs during the remediation and build phase, prioritised for local residents. Permanent employment in park management, maintenance, the Environmental Education Centre, and the community market. A park with basketball courts, football pitches, workout stations, walking trails, and gardens that gives young people in one of the country's most densely populated urban areas somewhere safe, green, and genuinely worth spending time. The annual Bakoteh Park Festival. A park designed with your input, built for your community, and managed with your employment.
For Every Family
The Bakoteh transformation is a measurement of whether this government means what it says about the dignity of every Gambian community. A community that has lived next to a burning, leaching, smoking dumpsite for decades is a community that has been failed by governance. The National Builders Party will repair that failure with concrete action: close the site, remediate the land, build the park, and govern the city-wide waste system that ensures no other community endures what Bakoteh has endured. Every family in The Gambia deserves clean air and safe streets. The park is proof that this government believes it.
The Bakoteh transformation is a measurement of whether this government means what it says about the dignity of every Gambian community. A community that has lived next to a burning, leaching, smoking dumpsite for decades is a community that has been failed by governance. The National Builders Party will repair that failure with concrete action: close the site, remediate the land, build the park, and govern the waste management system that prevents any other community from enduring what Bakoteh has endured. The New National Standard is not merely a park on a former dumpsite. It is clean air that stays clean. Groundwater quality that improves year on year. Waste collected reliably across the full Greater Banjul Area. A landfill run to international standards far from communities that should never have been asked to live next to one. And a five-year health impact report that measures, honestly, whether the people of Bakoteh are actually healthier than they were. That is accountability. That is what the National Builders Party delivers.
From waste to wellness. From pollution to purpose. From decades of neglect to a future worth building. The Bakoteh dumpsite will become Bakoteh Park, a green urban landmark and a symbol of what this government is prepared to do for communities that have been failed for too long.
Think Big. Build Big.
Read the plan. Join the movement.
Vote NBP