FOOD SECURITY ISSUES IN MOPTI DISTRICT, MALI

UNCLAS ROME 00591

SIPDIS

BAMAKO FOR USAID - NEWTON AND HARMAN
STATE FOR AF/W, AF/EPS AND IO/EDA
USAID FOR AFR/DP, AFR/WA, DCHA/FFP

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID AORC EAGR ML WFP FAO IFAD
SUBJECT: FOOD SECURITY ISSUES IN MOPTI DISTRICT, MALI


1. Summary: In conjunction with official travel to attend
FAO's African Regional Conference in Bamako (septel),
Alternate Permanent Representative Willem Brakel, U.S.
Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome, traveled to Mopti,
Bandiagara and surroundings in Central Mali between January
31 and February 2 to meet WFP field staff and visit WFP-
supported activities. WFP was seen to make effective use of
food aid to alleviate malnutrition and foster community
development activities in conjunction with various other
partners in the area; the level of engagement by local NGOs
in several projects visited was particularly encouraging.
End summary.


2. Mr. Brakel's program was coordinated and facilitated by
WFP Country Director Pablo Recalde, in consultation with
USAID Mali. Their support and assistance is gratefully
acknowledged. This trip report does not purport to be a
rigorous analysis of food insecurity in parts of Mali, nor
of the UN agencies' response thereto; and selection of sites
visited was driven in large part by logistical and timing
constraints, and no attempt at either random or
representative sampling was made. These observations,
rather, are meant to capture aspects of the situation that
might provide perspective for those involved in policy
discussions at the headquarters for the UN food and
agricultural agencies in Rome and in donor capitals.
USAID/Bamako, the U.S. Embassy, and WFP/Mali had the
opportunity to comment on the draft report.

BACKGROUND


3. According to an overview compiled by WFP, Mali is
classified as a least developed, low-income food-deficit
country that ranked 165th out of 174 countries in the UNDP
Human Development Index. Almost half of all children in
Mali are estimated to suffer from chronic malnutrition.
Literacy rates are extremely low, and in 1997-98 the school
attendance rate was around 50%. On its web site WFP lists
three current operations in Mali, two of which were to have
been completed in 2005:

-- An Emergency Operation (EMOP) for Assistance to
Populations Affected by the Desert Locust Outbreak and
Drought, March - November 2005, resourced at $11 million.

-- A Regional Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation
(PRRO),responding to the Cote d'Ivoire crisis and its
impact in neighboring countries, January-December 2005,
which includes $1.7 million for Mali (out of total funding
of $35.3 million),mainly for preparedness and support for
returnees and their host families.

-- A Development Operation, the Mali Country Program, 2003-
2007, funded at $19.5 million.

The USG has contributed $682,500 (4.38%) to the EMOP and
$13.3 million (26.6%) to the PRRO.

LATEST ASSESSMENT FROM FEWSNET


4. As of 17 January 2006, the food supply situation in 2006
was anticipated to improve, reflecting a good cereal harvest
in the country and across the region. Aggregate production
had been estimated by a joint FAO/Government mission at 3.1
million tonnes, some 14 percent above the five years
average. Output of millet, the most important cereal crop,
was estimated to have increased by some 30 percent to 1.1
million tonnes. However, production would have been much
higher if fertilizer use had not been reduced this year due
to the high prices and limited availability. Like several
other Sahelian countries, Mali faced a severe food crisis
characterised by unusually high food prices in 2005. The
crisis that was triggered by cereal and pasture shortages
across the sub-region resulting in depletion of household
assets including livestock and high level of indebtedness,
particularly among pastoral and agro-pastoral groups. As of
September, 2005, an estimated total of 600,000 people were
in need of food assistance.

MOPTI


5. An introductory briefing was presented at WFP's Mopti
Office by the officer in charge, Amadi Diallo, and two
colleagues. They spoke enthusiastically and passionately
about their work. Issues that arose in their presentation
and in conversations during subsequent visits to the
warehouses at Severe and project sites further east
included:

-- The role of food aid. WFP local staff said that food aid
served as a powerful catalyst for community projects; food
was more effective than disbursing cash. They pointed to
the impact of school feeding programs in the region in
raising enrolment, particularly of girls, and in galvanizing
community action. They recognized the possibility of
disincentives to local production of food, and therefore
said they are careful to suspend food aid delivery during
the several months of each year that locally produced food
was readily available. The outbreak of desert locusts in
the previous year had created a special need for food
assistance.

-- In-kind versus local purchase. In general, WFP purchases
the great majority of dry cereals (millet, maize, sorghum)
for Mali in-country. WFP imports all the enriched flour,
given that Malian production capacity is limited or too
expensive, as well as oil and pulses. For cereals, the year
2005 was the exception, since local production failed and
thus most of what WFP received was from imports.

-- Coordination among UN agencies/donors. The WFP Country
Program (CP) document clearly mentions the need "to
integrate CP activities with those of other UN agencies, so
that food aid, which is not in itself an adequate condition
for development, may be accompanied by additional resources
that are essential for effective implementation of
development activities." WFP Mopti staff said that they
maintained good contacts with government agencies and other
UN partners active in their district. They praised the
recent work of IFAD in the Timbuktu area, but said that FAO
did not seem much in evidence -- apparently due to lack of
resources.

-- Relationship with NGO partners. WFP carries out all its
activities in the Mopti region through NGO partners. At the
subsequent site visits the closeness of that relationship
was evident, as was the attempt to find synergies with other
development activities. This may not be the case for all
other agencies and NGOs in the region, however. It was
explained, for example, that local government authorities
had expressed concern that they did not always know what
NGOs were up to, and have asked for more detailed and
frequent reporting from these organizations.

-- Needs. WFP staff in Mopti indicated they were adequately
supplied with vehicles and facilities to carry out their
tasks. They mentioned, however, that access to some project
sites via road was impossible during the wet season, and
suggested that having a boat to provide access by water
would be helpful.

-- Communication and information sharing. The local WFP
staff said they were in regular contact with WFP Bamako, and
they receive occasional visitors from WFP Rome. They would
welcome and appreciate further opportunities to communicate
and exchange information with WFP and other partners in the
area, particularly those just across the border in adjacent
countries. They thought that they had developed some
successful approaches to community agriculture (e.g.,
construction of floodplain rice paddies, small dams, wells
and stone windbreaks) that could usefully serve as examples
for others working in the region.

BANDIAGARA


6. The visit to Bandiagara began with a meeting with
representatives of a farmers' association called Molibemo.
The group's name, translated from the Dogon language, means
"let us be united for work." Created in 1985, one year
after a major drought, Molibemo currently has 85 members and
is active in about half of the 21 communities in the Cercle
de Bandiagara. Its articulate and outspoken leaders
explained that the organization's principal activities
include a cereal bank, development of onion cultivation as a
cash crop, promotion of other income-generating activities
for women, microcredit, anti-erosion and reforestation.
They are supported by a number of international NGOs,
including Bread for the World and German Hunger Action.


7. Following a courtesy call on the local Prefect and
Mayor, we visited a community irrigation dam at
Diombololeye. This food-for-work project led by community
leaders with the assistance of Molibemo, German Hunger
Action and WFP, mobilized community action to restore a dam
whose catchment basin had become silted in over time. While
we were there, the villagers were out in force to excavate
the site with rudimentary hand tools. (The water for crops
is likewise hand-carried one bucket or calabash at a time up
to the small individual farm plots, although some
communities are investing in pumps.)


8. At a different location we observed another food-for-
work project: a dam in the very early stages of
construction. This involved the backbreaking work of
smashing bedrock with a sledgehammer and transporting the
resulting boulders one by one to the dry streambed where
they would form the core of the dam. The demonstration of
energy and enthusiasm by community members at both dam
projects was impressive, and elsewhere some visible patches
of bright green in an otherwise parched landscape attested
to the potential benefits of this approach to community
farming. But these projects also provided vivid
illustrations of challenges and past errors. The siltation
seen at the first site pointed to a longstanding failure to
address ongoing problems of soil erosion and deforestation
in the small watershed. The building of the new dam, it was
explained to us, had become necessary when a community's
previous dam had failed. Later, we passed additional dams
where there was no sign of cultivation; we were told that
the residents had failed to close the sluices in time to
capture the ephemeral rains of the previous wet season,
thereby missing their opportunity to plant crops on this
spot this year.


9. We also visited several targeted villages in the area of
Koundialan, where WFP and its NGO partners were active in
efforts to enable young children and expectant and nursing
mothers to meet their special nutritional and nutrition-
related health needs. There we were met by Yaiguere Fifi
Tembeley, the energetic and dynamic head of the Yam Giribolo
Tuno Association for the Promotion of Women. This group has
been active since 1997 in seeking to empower and raise the
incomes of rural women in its area of operation, the Dogon
Plateau. Ongoing activities include flour milling, family
planning, HIV/AIDS prevention, microcredit, and artisanal
soap-making and cloth dyeing.

COMMENT


10. The Mopti area, particularly the floodplain of the
Niger River seems to hold considerable agricultural
potential, but eking out a living on the rocky hillsides
appears to be a struggle even without the vagaries of sparse
rainfall and desert locust infestations. In this
environment, WFP was seen to make effective use of food aid
to alleviate malnutrition and foster community development
activities in conjunction with various other partners. The
challenges are formidable, but a bright spot for this
visitor was the energy and passion with which local NGOs are
tackling these problems at the community level.

Hall