Mali’s military coup d’état in August 2020 presented new and unique challenges to an already complex and fragile development context. Addressing these challenges will require an equally new and innovative approach that accounts for the risks inherent in uncertainty and the multitude of complexities associated with climate change, conflict and rapid population growth that continue to stress the Government of Mali’s (GoM) capacity to provide basic services.
The approach in this strategy is a departure from the past as it seeks to strike a balance between tried-and-true development interventions that have yielded solid results over the past several decades and renewed, better integrated efforts to confront long-standing development and humanitarian challenges.
The approach will build upon previous development gains in basic education, health and agriculture while addressing deficits in governance, peacebuilding, and basic needs. The strategy is also designed to overcome challenges associated with resilience to shocks and stresses resulting from climate change, food insecurity, and management of natural resources. At the heart of this approach is renewed emphasis on community-driven development, greater attention to localization, and the inclusion of marginalized groups, especially women and youth.
The goal of USAID/Mali’s 2022-2027 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) is a more stable, peaceful, and resilient Mali leading its own development. During the CDCS period, USAID/Mali will focus development and humanitarian investments on helping Malians to improve governance for stronger democratic institutions and the socio-economic environment for a healthier, better educated and more prosperous population with citizens empowered to meet basic emergency needs, reduce vulnerability, and build community capacity to respond to shocks and stresses. The USAID strategy fully aligns with Mali’s 2022 Integrated Country Strategy (ICS). The strategy takes an integrated approach to addressing priority cross-cutting issues to help ensure greater diversity, inclusivity, equality and accessibility for women and youth in all programming with a similarly strong focus on anti-corruption and transparency, community-driven development, integration across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) nexus, and resilience to climate shocks and stresses. USAID will weave gender-responsive and socially inclusive approaches throughout implementation of the strategy to ensure that all USAID programs and activities achieve meaningful and sustainable impact. This includes working with Malians to address concerns related to trafficking in persons and priorities outlined in the National Security Strategy, including the revitalization of democracy, protecting human rights, and reducing discrimination, inequity, and marginalization in all forms.
The strategy will optimize both short and longer-term impacts by being more intentional in integrating development and humanitarian assistance programming across sectors. At the conclusion of the strategy, the Mission expects to have had a meaningful impact on the capacity of local entities to sustain their own development and provide basic services, including for example, greater provision of community financed health services, more students reading at grade-level, enhanced agricultural production and marketing, and an increased number of conflict-prone communities better able to resolve and mitigate sources of conflict including the just and equitable management of natural resources. By aggregating efforts across the USAID Strategy and with our development partners, more communities will be prepared and equipped to prevent and respond to shocks and stresses caused by conflict and climate change, and thus will be less vulnerable to instability, reducing the need for humanitarian assistance.
