About

Rural Development Institute is one of the units of the Department of Community Development responsible for training of both pre and in service personnel’s of the department established in 1979.

Formerly the training started in Kiang Masambeh and during the inception the center was called Community and Rural Development Training Center then. RDI as a unit specialized in professional training in community and rural development and over the years has trained more than one thousand professionals who are serving both in public and private sectors including the NGOs community.
As a training institute the two principal programs includes Community Development Assistant Trainees (CDATs) which is a two-year certificate course leading to an award of National Certificate in Integrated Rural Development.

Upon completion of this programme and subsequent absorption into civil service within the context of Community arrangement, the holders of this certificate becomes Community Development Assistant (CDAs) who works as extension agents in the field of community development.
In other departments, agencies and within NGO settings, the holders of this qualification also work as field workers, program officers, field coordinators, etc.

The second programme which was only lunched in 2005 is called Higher National Diploma in Development Studies which is a one year programme and is considered as extension of the certificate programme and a pre-requisite to enter the programme includes one of the following; certificate in integrated rural development with two year experience or any other professional qualification with two years relevant experience examples PTC, HTC, BA, BSc, etc.
RDI also runs other short specialized professional courses in the areas of participatory planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Entrepreneurship, Gender and development, leadership and good governance etc.

Currently, within the framework of the NDP implementation process, Ministry of Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs as the line ministry of Department of Community and by extension RDI, is tasked to transform RDI in to Local Governance Institute for enhance decentralized developmental services in The Gambia.

One of the greatest challenges confronting RDI is lack of support especially in the areas of partnership. The department of Community Development as the parent department of the RDI is almost the only institution supporting the institute. Apart from which all other initiatives and resourcing are mainly provided within our available merger resources.