Mali

In view of the out­come of the nego­ti­a­tions between the Malian tran­si­tion­al author­i­ties and the Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ty of West African States (ECOW­AS), in par­tic­u­lar as regards the 24-month dura­tion of the tran­si­tion from 1 March 2022, the tran­si­tion strat­e­gy was extend­ed for two years, until 2024. For the 2023 – 2024 peri­od, a total finan­cial enve­lope (bilat­er­al, mul­ti­lat­er­al and human­i­tar­i­an) of EUR 42 mil­lion is planned.

Bilat­er­al­ly, in 2023 Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to imple­ment the six bilat­er­al pro­grammes in the areas of voca­tion­al train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion, rur­al devel­op­ment and food secu­ri­ty, as well as the strength­en­ing of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties’ resilience. Four bilat­er­al projects are being imple­ment­ed by LuxDev and two bilat­er­al projects by PRO­MAN, the design consultant.

In 2023, through the ​“Train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion pro­gramme”, LuxDev sup­port­ed young peo­ple and women in their eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion into pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied promis­ing sec­tors, such as meat, mar­ket gar­den­ing, rice, fonio, sesame and man­go. In 2023, the ​“Sup­port pro­gramme for agro-pas­toral sec­tors”, imple­ment­ed by LuxDev with the sup­port of Switzer­land in the regions of Ségou and Sikas­so, deliv­ered a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of train­ing, coach­ing, aware­ness-rais­ing and advo­ca­cy activ­i­ties to strength­en the role of women in rel­e­vant sec­tors and pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions. Through the project ​“Strength­en­ing the resilience of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in the Kita Cir­cle and their access to the mar­ket sys­tem — Phase III”, in 2023 Car­i­tas con­struct­ed wells and devel­oped mar­ket gar­den­ing areas, trained ben­e­fi­cia­ries in inno­v­a­tive agro-eco­log­i­cal prac­tices, and pro­vid­ed advice to sup­port the for­mal­i­sa­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­i­sa­tion of new farm­ers’ organ­i­sa­tions that have expressed their inten­tion to form coop­er­a­tive societies.

Through its projects ​“Sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in the Kidal region” and ​“Sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in the Gao region”, in 2023 PRO­MAN was able to car­ry out rur­al devel­op­ment activ­i­ties (estab­lish­ment of grain and feed banks, con­struc­tion of bore­holes, wells and water sup­ply points, con­struc­tion and rein­state­ment of ani­mal vac­ci­na­tion cen­tres), as well as in the field of voca­tion­al train­ing (pro­vi­sion of equip­ment for mas­ter crafts­men, estab­lish­ment and oper­a­tional­i­sa­tion of mobile train­ing units), or in the edu­ca­tion sec­tor (construction/​upgrading of schools, sup­port for school can­teens). Final­ly, emer­gency mea­sures such as the pro­vi­sion of food to dis­placed per­sons and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions have been put in place to meet the imme­di­ate needs of the pop­u­la­tion in the programme’s areas of intervention.

In terms of mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion, a new project on emer­gency obstet­ric and neona­tal care and sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health was launched in 2023. This project is being imple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA). In addi­tion, Lux­em­bourg has extend­ed the two projects imple­ment­ed in Mali by the Unit­ed Nations Pro­gramme for Devel­op­ment (UNDP) by six months (until June 2024). These projects are in the field of entre­pre­neur­ship, and in sup­port for elec­toral reforms.

In response to the grow­ing human­i­tar­i­an needs in Mali, Lux­em­bourg con­tributed EUR 3.7 mil­lion to the human­i­tar­i­an work of its part­ners in the coun­try in 2023. Sup­port was pro­vid­ed through struc­tures with which Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has long-stand­ing rela­tions, such as the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) and the UN Human­i­tar­i­an Air Ser­vice (UNHAS), as well as var­i­ous human­i­tar­i­an NGOs such as the Lux­em­bourg Red Cross, Médecins du Monde Bel­gium, and also the Inter­na­tion­al NGO Safe­ty Organ­i­sa­tion (INSO).

Under a frame­work agree­ment, five Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs (Fon­da­tion Brid­der­lech Dee­len, the Lux­em­bourg Red Cross, Fon­da­tion Follereau Lux­em­bourg, Hand­i­cap Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg and SOS Faim) have imple­ment­ed devel­op­ment projects in Mali in Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s pri­or­i­ty areas of inter­ven­tion. Reg­u­lar meet­ings between Luxembourg’s embassy in Bamako and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of these NGOs were held in 2023 to pro­mote syn­er­gies between the activ­i­ties of the var­i­ous NGOs, ensure a bet­ter impact and increase the effec­tive­ness of aid and the coher­ence of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s actions more broad­ly. The finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion by Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion to these projects amounts to EUR 7.2 mil­lion, in addi­tion to the bud­get allo­cat­ed to the exten­sion of the tran­si­tion strategy.