In The Gambia as part of an ICRT Leeds Met Africa initiative with our West Africa sister organisation ICRT-WA for a series of workshops with ASSET, the Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism, the Gambian Tourism Authority and the Kartong Association for Responsible Tourism - it is now a rare privilege to work at the village level. The ICRT has two alumni completing their Masters from The Gambia and a marketing officer planning to start at Leeds Met in September; and we have one of our centenary PhD students, Louise Dixey, researching ASSET. It is an active and enriching partnership.

 
The partnership began with an encounter with Adama Bah at the Commission on Sustainable Development at the UN in 1999. He persuaded me that if I came to The Gambia for a workshop we would do some interesting things together. I dug into my pocket for the airfare and a partnership was formed. That workshop led to the creation of ASSET, still unique in the world, and to the DFID funded action research which demonstrated that increasing market access and improving product could dramatically improve the earnings of the poor from tourism. Adama was right - the partnership blossomed.