Success Stories

The main source of income in southern Mali is agriculture. Following the harvest season, farmers are left without a steady source of income. To diversify incomes, Feed the Future Mali Sene Yiriwa is funding partners to improve traditional poultry farming and breeding of small ruminants such as sheep and goats.

Many children in Mali, including the internally displaced, do not have access to original birth certificates due to relocation, loss, or their birth never having been registered. The effects of this are myriad. One negative impact is that children without birth certificates are unable to register for school or receive other basic social services.

The village of Kona in Mali’s Bougouni region is 23 kilometers from the nearest community health center. Two years ago, based on rumors about the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines, community leaders and heads of households lost trust in the public health system and suspended all vaccinations, community nutrition activities, and use of medicine for children to prevent seasonal malaria.

The village of Siradoba in Mali’s Ségou region had two boreholes providing safe, potable drinking water and reducing diarrheal diseases: the first was donated in 1990 and the second in 2015. Both boreholes broke down in 2021 leading people to drink from traditional wells, that are not fit for human consumption and had been reserved for washing clothes. "As a result, cases of diarrhea and abdominal pain became common…we had not taken action to have the boreholes repaired as we were hoping for the support of a partner who was slow to come, while the population continued to suffer,” says Kalidy Diarra, a member of the village health solidarity committee.

It is eight o'clock in the morning in Bougouni, Mali, and Kadidia Diakité has arrived at a village to meet with community health actors. She has one goal in mind; to improve the health of children and mothers by helping households to better plan and manage their own health.

Food insecurity and malnutrition are endemic in Mali, hitting children hard. While rates of stunting (chronic malnutrition) have gone down significantly over the past decade, nearly 1.5 million children under the age of five are still expected to suffer from wasting (acute malnutrition) between June 2022 and May 2023 and the path out of extreme poverty is hard.

Mr. Dembélé, head of a 15-person family, sells meat in the village of Kremis in Mali’s Kayes region. His family has been slaves to another family for generations. Mr. Dembélé was forced to give his “master” a large portion of the proceeds from his meat-selling business.

Community-based disease surveillance is a crucial way to stop dangerous outbreaks before they spread. Community members are trained to spot disease among people and animals in their community and report to health authorities.

Challenges faced by rural, smallholder farmers around the world are being amplified by climate change and conflict as communities struggle to recover from the market-distorting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of people affected by hunger has increased by 46 million since 2020– reaching 828 million globally.

Globally, social media has become the fastest way to disseminate information and spread disinformation, and Mali is no exception.