Mali

The Challenges and the Changes

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. The 2004 Government and UNDP reports hold out little prospect of achieving the Millennium Development Goals in full by 2015, but there is hope for growing enough food to feed its own people, all primary children attending school and clean drinking water for all.

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Poverty

Challenges

• In 2001, 64% of the population were living in poverty
• In 2000/2002, 29% of the population were undernourished
• In 2000, 20% of the population suffered from malnourishment

Progress was made in the 1990’s due to stable democratically-elected governments. However:

• Corruption, especially amongst political parties, continues today
• Some of the funds allocated to help the country reach its MDG goals have been used by the government to provide humanitarian assistance to returnees and asylum seekers, escaping from the continuing conflict in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire.

Changes

Mali’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, which its government follows, is ambitious. It seeks to reduce poverty from 64% in 2001 to 47% in 2006. This is to be achieved by:

• Giving more power to local government
• Fighting corruption
• Improving access to basic health services, nutrition, education and safe drinking water
• Developing the transport infrastructure
• Creating at least 10,000 non-agricultural jobs a year
• Providing m icro finance for small and medium-sized companies especially those run by women.

The UN Development Report from which the graph below is taken shows how the numbers of people in poverty needs to continue to fall by 2015

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Education

Challenges

• In 2004, only 24% of 15-24 year olds were literate

The UN graph below shows how the numbers of children attending primary school needs to increase so that by 2015 all children will receive a primary education

The Mali Education Sector Expenditure Program II (ESEP) will support the Malian government in the construction and equipment of schools, recruitment and training of teachers, improving the management of the education system and the implementation of a strategy in favour of the schooling of the girls.

Changes

Primary school enrolment has been increasing rapidly, 26% in 1990, 39% in 1995, 58% in 2000 to 67% in 2003.

 

• In July 2006 the World Bank approved US$35 million loan to assist the government of Mali in its Ten-Year Program for the Development of Education. This lays the groundwork to achieve 100% attendance in primary education in Mali by 2015.

• The Mali Education Sector Expenditure Program II (ESEP) will support the Malian government in the construction and equipment of schools, recruitment and training of teachers, improving the management of the education system and the implementation of a strategy in favour of the schooling of the girls.

However:
“The quality of education in Mali remains a major concern, and the country’s academic achievement scores in reading and math are among the lowest of francophone African countries. This project will address this issue, among others, and help improve the current literacy rates and math scores.”William Experton, theWorld Bank Task Team Leader for the project.

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Education

Challenges

• Mali's economic development is slow, the country depends on foreign aid and money sent home from its own people working abroad.
• Mali’s people depend on farming which is vulnerable to climate changes.
• It’s farmers suffer from changes in world prices for cotton, its main export
• Mali has lobbied with other African cotton exporters against unfair subsidies to cotton farmers in richer countries, particularly the US.

Changes

• Follo wing the G8 agreement in 2005 to cancel the debts of the poorest countries, Mali‘s remaining debt to the World Bank was cancelled on 1 July 2006 leaving these funds free to spend on reducing poverty
• The government anticipates that Mali will become a major Sub-Saharan gold exporter in the next few years.
• Hopefully both cotton production and gold-mining will increase employment for the people of Mali.

The EU is one of the biggest cotton importers and a third of the EU’s cotton imports come from West Africa, with between 20% and 80% from Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Chad. Fairer terms of trade for Mali’s cotton export will help support millions of poor farmers

Follow the link to: What’s a fair deal for cotton farmers?

Are the rich countries in the world, like the UK and USA doing enough to support a poor country like Mali?

What can the UK do?

Note: UK aid reached 0.48% of GNI last year, up from 0.36% in 2004, and is on track to meeting its 0.7% target by 2013

What can you do about it as a consumer?

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