Overview

Operating out of a principle office in the Douentza district, the NEF team of 40 local development professionals works to implement programs that are consistently community-based, participatory, and multi-sectoral. NEF began its involvement in Mali in 1984, in response to a severe drought that left the country in socio-economic crisis. To improve agricultural resilience, NEF assisted communities in the Mopti region to establish local cereal and seed banks. This project set the pattern for NEF’s future work in Mali, which has largely focused on enhancing food security and alleviating the effects of climate change and endemic poverty. Since then, NEF has become a leader and innovator in sustainable, community-based approaches to forests, fisheries, rangelands, and agricultural lands management. Combining rights-based institutional development, policy research and advocacy, and capacity building for local governments and CBOs, the models for sustainable natural resource management (NRM) developed by NEF in rural Mali have spread across Africa.

NEF now works in rural areas to enable smallholders to reduce vulnerability to climate change. Drawing on this experience, NEF also coordinates a national-level working group on climate adaptation and assists Mali’s government in climate policy—including participating in Mali’s official delegation to international climate negotiations.