# Gambia in crisis as blackouts persist Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/focus-on-africa-160336/gambia-in-crisis-as-blackouts-persist Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/focus-on-africa-160336/gambia-in-crisis-as-blackouts-persist.md Podcast: [Focus on Africa](https://stenobird.com/podcast/focus-on-africa-160336) Published: 2026-09-21T14:58:00+00:00 Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct8n35 Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0pbrx5h.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/focus-on-africa-160336/episodes/gambia-in-crisis-as-blackouts-persist Duration seconds: 1379 ## Resource For months now, power blackouts have been disrupting life and business for thousands of people in Gambia. The crisis has recently sparked protests in the capital Banjul and surrounding areas and at least 20 people have been arrested. The country's main power provider, NAWEC, says the outage is the result of rising demand, limits on electricity imports, and technical challenges. As public frustration grows, President Adama Barrow who is seeking a controversial third term in the December elections, has pledged improvements in coming months. We hear from those affected. And a new study suggests most women in five African countries prefer cash over digital payment methods. Presenter: Nkechi Ogbonna Producers: Ayuba Iliya and Bella Twine Technical Producer: Davis Mwasaru Senior Producer: Charles Gitonga Editors: Daniel Dadzie and Maryam Abdalla ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/focus-on-africa-160336/episodes/gambia-in-crisis-as-blackouts-persist/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/focus-on-africa-160336/gambia-in-crisis-as-blackouts-persist.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.