What does USAID Mali do?

The USAID mission in Mali uses funds from the American people to increase Malians’ incomes and well-being, improve health and education standards, and provide tools to govern effectively and transparently. USAID Mali has five main programs: high impact health services, improved quality of basic education, shared democratic governance through decentralization, accelerated economic growth, and communications for development

Improving health services

Malaria is the number one killer of children in Mali. USAID promotes use of insecticide treated bednets, the most cost-effective way to reduce malaria, making nearly half a million available since the start of the program. USAID funding also expands access to HIV/AIDS prevention and testing services, further consolidates HIV/AIDS surveillance activities, reduces vitamin A and iron deficiency, increases immunization coverage, prevents and treats diarrheal diseases, and expands access to family planning, and reproductive health services.

Increasing the quality of basic education

Mali’s primary school enrollment rate is among the lowest in the world, particularly for girls. Quality of education is so low that only half of Malian students have learned to read by the end of Grade 6. To address these problems, USAID works to improve the quality of basic education in over 900 public, community-owned, and Islamic (medersa) primary schools. Through President Bush's Africa Education Initiative, USAID provides school-based and distance teacher training to over 5,500 teachers. USAID has developed radio-based teacher training, including Interactive Radio Instruction broadcast directly into primary school classrooms, which benefits over 100,000 students. USAID works to mobilize communities to improve their local schools by providing adult literacy training to over 6,000 adult learners and supporting capacity-development activities for 700 School Management Committees. To date, this has resulted in the implementation of over 11,000 School Improvement Projects. In the northern regions of Mali, USAID uses Africa Education Initiative resources to fund scholarships for approximately 6,000 disadvantaged girl students each year

Strengthening democracy

Since holding its first democratic election in 1992, Mali has become one of the most enlightened democracies in all of Africa. USAID’s democracy and governance program promotes the participation of various groups in the democratic process; provides local communities with the skills to administer their own financial systems; develops policies that support the success of decentralized government; and increases women’s role in decision-making. Women were significantly represented on the 2004 ballot for the first time in history, and in the last two years the number of elected female leaders has increased by 200 percent. With USAID support, 24 targeted rural municipalities identified major governance issues and developed realistic strategies to address them.



Accelerating economic growth

Mali's economy is based largely on agriculture, and has become essentially self-sufficient in food production. USAID programs strengthen agricultural sector growth by targeting export commodities for which Mali has a comparative advantage, such as rice, potato, mango, and animal products. They work to reinforce the Malian private sector by improving the management of agribusinesses and strengthening microfinance institutions. USAID helped increase mango exports to 2,984 metric tons, 14 percent more than the previous year. Four cooperatives working with USAID to develop export capacity saw their combined potato exports increase from 10 metric tons in 2004 to 374 metric tons in 2005.



Improving access to information and communications technology

Mali can boast a fully open press and the largest number of private radio stations in any African country. Access to information is critical to Mali’s development; the USAID communications for development program improves the quality of information available on development-related topics and reduces regulatory and policy constraints on information access. Thirty eight USAID-funded telecenters provide information to a potential audience of over 750,000 people and have generated sufficient revenue to cover all of their operating costs. Internet access points are now available in most Malian cities and towns with a population of over 5,000 people. Over 310 radio programs were broadcast on topics concerning health, child trafficking, education, democratic governance, microfinance and trade opportunities, sound environmental practices, women’s issues, and other topics.

Last Updated: Wednesday April 9 2008