Mali

Overview
For nearly 30 years, NEF has developed sustainable, community-based approaches to manage forests, fisheries, rangelands, and agricultural lands in Mali. NEF projects alleviate poverty, reduce conflict, and build institutional capacity in a region that is vulnerable to famine, climate change, and disputes over natural resources.
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 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.
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. Since then, NEF has become a leader and innovator in Mali. Combining rights-based institutional development, policy research and advocacy, and capacity building for local governments and community-based organizations, the models for sustainable natural resource management developed by NEF in rural Mali have spread across Africa.
NEF has fostered long-standing relationships of trust in Mali by proving its effectiveness with successful initiatives at multiple scales—from isolated villages, to local governments, to the national policy arena.
NEF’s current projects in Mali are funded by U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Food For Peace, the Rain Foundation, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bamako, and United Kingdom’s Department of International Development.
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Projects

Forests for a Resilient Future
Background
Increased levels of conflict coupled with environmental impacts from climate change have disrupted food security and harmed livelihoods in Mali. Erosion, drought, illegal exploitation, and low levels of rainfall have all contributed to deforestation in the country, and it has especially impacted those living in rural areas who rely on agriculture to support themselves.
Impact
Forests for a Resilient Future is improving forest cover in target areas by planting vegetation, improving land through assisted natural regeneration, forming protection brigades to help prevent forest losses, and training local actors on best practices. The project will cover six localities of Mopti and involve 2,445 local persons in the process of forest protection, including local authorities and technical service providers. The project is expected to benefit more than 40,000 people.

BRACED: Decentralizing Climate Funds (DCF) in Mali and Senegal
DCF is an action-research and advocacy project supporting communities in Senegal and Mali to become more resilient to climate change. It is part of the UK-government funded program, Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED). The Near East Foundation leads the project with partners Innovation, Environnement et Développement en Afrique (IED-Afrique) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Since 2015, NEF has worked with national, regional, and local governments in Mali and Senegal to establish 4 Climate Adaptation Funds (CAF) of £500,000 (about 445 million CFA Francs) that has financed ‘public good’ investments designed to build community resilience to climate change. Vulnerable communities were prioritized through investments on participatory, local level processes that included women and youth. Throughout the project, the DCF team expanded local stakeholder’s institutional, financial and technological capacities to deliver climate resilient development through a total of 178 training events in sensitive agricultural practices. NEF has also equipped local governments with the financial and planning systems required for managing the CAFs in a transparent and accountable manner. The integration of climate adaptation strategies with long-term local development planning has enhanced resliency for 1,099,048 individuals thus far, and has demonstrated the effectiveness that local control and advocation provides

Developing Food Security and Resilience to Climate Change and Conflict
Background
This project works with conflict-affected communities in Mali's Mopti region and aims to support 200 communities in developing local conventions and land-use management plans to improve food security, sustainable natural resource management, and conflict management. These efforts support the implementation of community-level micro-projects to improve productivity of natural resources, collective income generating projects, and improves value chains/market linkages for meat, fish and onions.
Impact
NEF has so far worked with 80 communities to implement natural resource management projects, where 200 collective income generating projects have been developed, impacting 14,300 households and 100,000 people.

Restoring Food Security and Building Resilience in Crisis-Affected Communities
Background
Reducing food insecurity and supporting the economic recovery of 21,783 conflict- and drought-affected people in 18 communes in five Cercles in the Mopti and Timbuktu regions. Building upon successes achieved under NEF’s RECAPE II project, this next iteration employs commodity-fixed food vouchers to support microenterprise recovery, expands market based access to seeds and tools, and introduces improved NRM activities in 16 communes to (1) improve vulnerable individuals’ access to food, (2) help households to rebuild productive assets and diversify livelihood strategies, and (3) jumpstart local economies through the resumption of trade and production.
Impact
After launching in July 2015, baseline studies show that 3,080 microenterprise owners (2,310 women) received grain vouchers to offset household food costs, allowing them to redirect income toward the gradual recapitalization of their business. Using "seed protection" vouchers, 6,450 individuals (3,870 women) avoided consumption of household seed stocks at the height of the "lean season", and 1,150 individuals (559 women) planted ecologically and economically beneficial tree species.

Water Resource Management
Background
In 1992, NEF began pioneering creative and realistic long-term solutions to the water challenges facing people in northern Mali, with a focus on the Mopti region. Together with its local partners, NEF introduced simple technologies to improve the efficiency of water collection, storage, and use, including rainwater harvesting, surface water management, and spring catchment. This work helps villagers better manage their scarce water resources so that a greater number of people have access to a more abundant, stable water supply for multiple uses.
Impact
(2014 - 2016) Because every village faces unique water resource constraints—based on rainfall patterns, groundwater availability, and springs—NEF has developed a range of strategies to adapt to a given area’s water supply and needs. In some cases, these are traditional techniques that are reintroduced or upgraded to improve efficiency and scale. Now communities across the region are better able to control the water on which their lives depend, resulting in the ability to lead more settled and prosperous lives.

Women's Microfinance
Background
Microfinance is a powerful tool that poor families with little to no net worth can use to start small businesses, smooth gaps in household income and consumption, and build net worth. Unfortunately, many communities – particularly in isolated, rural areas – lack access to affordable credit and savings schemes. To address this gap, NEF began providing microfinance, savings, and wire services to women in the Mopti region in 1992 as part of its enterprise-oriented, anti-poverty work. In 1998, we founded an independent, women-owned and managed microfinance institution — Nayral NEF — to assume ownership over all lending and savings activity. To date, Dutch, U.S., Malian, and international governmental and private organizations have all contributed to the development of the association and its business.
Impact
Since 1998, NAYRAL-NEF has lent roughly $11 million to more than 47,000 women across Mopti region. A combination of sound fiscal management and high repayment rates saw our revolving credit pool expand from $1 million to $3.7 million between 1998 and 2015. As of 2010, internal funds had grown from $100,000 to $882,753. NEF also works with the National Agricultural Development Bank to manage a revolving credit fund that supports agricultural production and food security among farming households. The fund enables producers to purchase grains and other vegetable products to be stored and re-sold between harvests when food stocks dwindle and market prices of staple foods tend to rise.

Economic Recovery in Northern Mali
Background
Malians in Mopti and Timbuktu regions are slowly recovering from a cumulative humanitarian crisis unprecedented in the nation’s recent history – a pastoral crisis in 2010 and severe drought in 2011, followed by a coup d’état and subsequent violent occupation by Tuareg separatists and jihadists from 2012-2013. The occupation brought local economic activity to a halt: markets were closed, the flow of goods stopped, and women’s participation in economic development was severely limited. Rebels and jihadists destroyed market gardens, wells, and water pumps, and stole plows and cattle left behind by the more than 250,000 Malians who fled the violence. The French army eventually drove the militants out of the region and into the North, allowing the displaced to return home. However, weak rains, pest infestations, and a lack of assets kept returnees from restarting food production and reopening their businesses.
Impact
Project activities contributed to immediate recovery through targeted interventions designed to shore up short-term food security, restore means of production, and get local markets working again. NEF-Mali distributed millet vouchers to 4,000 small business owners to cover household food needs for 3 months, empowering owners to rebuild and restock their damaged workshops and looted inputs with money they would have otherwise spent on food. The project team also reconstructed and restocked 11 fishpond and 19 community wells and pastoral water points, and rehabilitated over 700 ha of irrigated rice fields and rangeland to the benefit of more than 65,000 individuals – half of them women – and 300,000 head of livestock.
People We Serve
Our work is based on a conviction that, to play an active role in the development of their communities and countries, people need opportunities and tools: the knowledge to participate in civic and economic life, a voice in public decisions that affect their wellbeing, and a means of making a meaningful living.

Sanata Magnata
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Samba Allaye Dicko
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Kaadi Tangura
Mali
A father of 4, Kaadi works hard to grow millet on the hills outside his home in the village of Bagui, Mali, in the commune of Korombana. Lacking irrigation and with poor rainfall, Kaadi’s production seldom was greater than 1 ton.
“Most years, low rainfall meant I could only harvest 2 to 3 months worth of grain for my family,” Kaadi said. “It was not enough. To make up the difference, I had to sell our animals just to put food on the table or find temporary work in Bamako or Mopti.”
With the installation of an irrigation system in 2005, farmers like Kaadi were able to make the most out of what little water was available, allowing them to stagger crop irrigation and ultimately increase their yields. From 2007 to 2012, the Tangura family produced enough food to meet its own needs and beyond. Kaadi was able meet all of his household needs and even sell rice at the market. He recouped the animals and equipment he had sold during leaner times.
When political crisis struck Mali in 2012, rebels in the north roamed from town to town in search of homes and businesses to loot, vandalizing infrastructure in towns like Bagui. The irrigated perimeter in Bagui was destroyed.
“After so many successful years, we lost everything”, Kaadi said. “I was so discouraged … I considered uprooting my family and moving somewhere safer to start all over again.”
Then, through the support of the United States Agency for International Development/Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), the Near East Foundation distributed vouchers for food aid, fertilizers, and seeds to hundreds of households like the Tangura’s and worked with local leaders to repair vandalized infrastructure.
Agricultural activity has resumed, and the local economy is slowly coming back to life. Along with others in his community, Kaadi and his family have begun to recover.
“It is often said that where there is life, there is hope,” Kaadi said. “Thanks to the RECAPE project, I can personally attest that this saying is true. Thank you to all who have contributed to my village’s rebirth and helped us to preserve our dignity. There is so much potential here, in the land and in the water.”
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Dikore Diallo
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Amadou from Douentza
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Teresa from Douentza
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Mariam from Douentza
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Mali
The Northern region of Mali is still recovering from the strife and insurgency of 2012. You you won't find tension in the quiet village of Sobbo. This is where Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko have their rice fields. Hama is Sub-Saharan and Moctar is of Arab-Berber descent. The tenions of the past year might as well be thousands of miles away. They are friends and partners, working together to tend to their crops, develop their land and to increase their incomes.
Hama and Moctar saw the potential to raise fish on the unused portion of their land. Surrounded by rice fields, the location is a natural development and a good use of excess water. When they asked NEF for help, we sent out people to inspect the site, help develop it and help develop their business plans. Hama and Moctar worked hard to build the site and worked alongside NEF to develop the local infrastructure to facilitate Sobbo's development.
Their new fish farm increased the diversity and amount of food they can grow, which now includes native fruits and other small crops they grow on the edges of their fish pool. The project also increased their incomes, not only using the fish as a source of income, but the new roads and other infrastructure helped open access to new markets and allow Hama and Moctar to seek the best prices for for their fish and rice.
They now plan to reinvest their new incomes into their rice farm and continue to develop their fish ponds. They are both very excited and happy about their new developments and were very proud of everything they accomplished with NEF's help. They are grateful that NEF was willing to work as much and as hard as they were to better their lives and farms and hope to work together more in the future.
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga
Engély Guindo
Mali
Amba is a small village on the Gao road, north of Sévaré. The locals at first scoffed at the idea that trees could grow in the Sahel, the semiarid region between the flowing sand dunes of the Sahara Desert and the lush grasslands of the West Sudanian Savanna. They had been farming in this region for generations and had never seen anything like it.
And yet, in Amba, there is a grove of trees belonging to a local farmer and NEF partner, Engléy Guindo. Engléy was willing to believe with a little hard work and persistence, that trees could grow. NEF provided training and supplies, as well as a small grant to get Engléy’s grove started. And grow they did.
First he planted Baobab and Eucalyptus trees, because they grow quickly and new trees will grow from the stumps when the trees are harvested. A eucalyptus will grow six to twelve inches in just a year. The whole process of growth and harvesting good wood for market takes just four years. The fruit of the Baobab has more calcium than spinach and more vitamin C than an orange. The leaves of both are also used in foods and sauces. Engléy’s groves has improved the diversity of his food and his access to it, as well as increasing his income from selling the leaves, fruits and wood. The wood of the Eucalyptus is very valuable at markets in the country.
Soil and water conservation are very important in the Sahel. Desertification is slowly creeping up on parts of central Mali and the effects of climate change are felt all year long, especially when the seasons change. The region has recovered from the 2010 Sahelian Famine, but improving the management of resources and access to food is a top priority of NEF’s work in Mali.
More tree growth projects are underway in other areas of Mali, like Tété and Mbessena. The locals in Mbessena were also skeptical of growing trees, but when one farmer like Engléy Guindo took the chance to grow one hectare and succeeded, the others joined in. A few short years later, Mbessena has 36 hectares and a wide increase in local incomes. With the help of trees like the Eucalyptus and the Baobab, combined with the hard work and dedication of the people of Mali, they will slowly but surely reclaim the desert.
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Fatoumata Traoré
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga
Samba Diallo
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga

Samba Maiga
Mali
Sanata Magnata
Samba Allaye Dicko
Kaadi Tangura
Dikore Diallo
Amadou from Douentza
Teresa from Douentza
Mariam from Douentza
Hama Alaye Traoré and Moctar Dicko
Engély Guindo
Fatoumata Traoré
Samba Diallo
Samba Maiga