Agriculture and
social economy in Mali

Mali is promoting sustainable, modern and competitive agriculture relying first and foremost on family farm operations and aiming both to achieve food security and to male agriculture the engine of the national economy.

The social economy is another major component of Mali’s economic development, and this also benefits from the government’s political will.

ON THE GROUND

The priorities of Uniterra’s partners are to improve the competitiveness of agricultural products, primarily those of women (rice, shea butter, fruits and vegetables) by working on product quality and marketing and on access to domestic, regional and international markets by strongly performing social economy companies. In addition, the partners are collaborating with the government to implement a national social economy policy.

Uniterra has also agreed to continue collaboration with partners in the health sector and to maintain a project aimed at improving the quality of health care and access to health-related services for women and young people.

In the last five years, women’s shea butter producers’ cooperatives have seen their revenues grow substantially. What is needed now is to reach more markets and to strengthen the competitiveness of products.

Uniterra has also worked in the rice sector, creating groups of women rice parboilers, thereby improving the quality of the rice and, as a result, raising income. The emphasis now goes on broadening parboiler groups and on the ecological use of rice residues as fuel for parboiling.

UNITERRA’S PARTNERS IN MALI

FCPS: Fédération des Centres de Prestations de Service “Faranfasiso”
RENAPESS: Réseau National d’appui à l’économie sociale et solidaire
Shea butter partner group:
ACOD: Association conseil pour le développement
MPFEF: Projet Karité du ministère de la Promotion de la Femme de l’Enfant et de la Famille
AMPJF: Association Malienne pour la promotion de la jeune fille
GP/DCF: Le Groupe Pivot/Droits et citoyenneté des femmes
CAFO: Coordination nationale des associations et organisations féminines du Mali
FENASCOM: Fédération nationale des associations de santé communautaires du Mali