Mali

The conflict in Mali from 2012 to 2013 damaged the country’s reputation as a solid democracy. The ensuing peace process focused strongly on ensuring that the largely functional municipalities could contribute to the stability of the country and continue to provide public services as democratically legitimate local institutions.

Mali’s government is therefore relying on a process of increased decentralisation and transferring more powers to the regions. This aims to promote dialogue and reconciliation among sections of the population and help overcome the country’s crisis.

With co-financing by the Fonds National d’Appui aux Collectivités Territoriales (FNACT), KfW Development Bank is helping to meet the social and economic infrastructure needs of all 760 Malian regional bodies on behalf of the German Federal Government. FNACT finances investments defined in community development plans. Examples of institutions receiving funding are schools well as health stations, city halls and their respective equipment, as well as markets.

Moreover, KfW is financing the construction of a classroom for the Malian administrative school Centre de Formation des Collectivités Territoriales (CFCT), which will train Mali’s municipal officials.

Water holds the key to Mali’s agricultural success: using simple irrigation techniques, 2.2 million hectares of land could be used for farming. Just 380,000 hectares are being used as cropland today. In the foothills of the Sahara to the north, the water from the Inner Niger Delta is pumped into rice fields using motorised pumps: the perimeters are traversed by canals and thus enable controlled irrigation. Retention dams ensure that the river water in flooded areas can be used effectively. Small dams accumulate rainwater on the rocky plateau of the Dogon region. In the rainy south of Mali, where farmers grow crops for the entire country, larger dams help to increase production. In addition, new project components such as the establishment of fish farms are intended to help expand the product range.

The success can be measured: productivity on rehabilitated, newly developed land has nearly doubled from an average of 3.5 to now 6 tonnes per hectare. The incomes of families are climbing significantly. Agriculture ensures the food supply, especially in remote regions, and it creates jobs: an important contribution to preserving peace, especially since the projects are conflict-sensitive and thus enjoy support across ethnic and religious divides.

Poverty and disease prevail in places where there is no clean water. Diarrhoea and malaria are the main causes of death in children in Mali, where 20% of all children do not reach their fifth birthday. Women and girls, whose job it has traditionally been to fetch water, sometimes have to cover vast distances to the next watering hole, all the while carrying heavy loads.

In some of the cities of the Kayes region in the west of the country, a solar-powered electric pump now does the work for them. New wells supply water to several standpipes in the middle of the town close to their houses through supply units and pipelines several kilometres long. People now have enough clean drinking water, even when temperatures reach 40°C in the shade. KfW Development Bank plans to finance another 60 to 70 of these kinds of supply systems in the next few years, primarily in rural regions and small towns, but also in the urban area of the city of Kayes.

The result will be new supply systems with wells, a mains system, solar-powered pumps and storage capacities. Public standpipes will be set up as a first step, followed later by private connections for individual houses and farm communities. The new wells will convey water from deep layers below ground directly to the residential areas. The supply of water alone, however, is not enough to solve the hygiene problems seen in Mali’s urban areas. As a result, KfW is also financing public latrines at these locations on behalf of the German Federal Government. Hygiene campaigns aim to convince people that they can contribute to fighting infectious diseases themselves.