Despite reductions in the national poverty rate and incidence of hunger over the last decade, Mali remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It is still heavily reliant on agriculture. Food insecurity is aggravated by high food and fuel prices as well as environmental risks and climatic shocks, such as drought, flooding, irregular rainfall patterns and locust invasions.
To address these challenges, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) began implementation of the Mopti Coordinated Area Development Programme (MCADP) in 2007. Initially, it focused on 35 villages in the areas of Mopti and Djenné. Since 2012, the programme has expanded to 125 new villages. AKF interventions focus on increasing food security and household income by:
- Increasing the production of staple food crops, high value tree crops and high value vegetable crops;
- Increasing the resilience of the vulnerable households;
- Providing training and skills building to village organisations who can coordinate and implement social and economic development activities at the community level; and
- Establishing linkages with the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) to facilitate access to finance for agriculture.
These interventions reach almost 65,000 people in the target areas and are complemented by AKF’s work in the social sectors.
Specific activities include supporting the establishment of 83 community vegetable gardens that provide income for local women, and linking VO members to micro-credit institutions such as AKAM so that they can obtain relevant financial services. AKF has encouraged VOs to be accountable to their members and is training community monitoring committees that help to ensure that the VOs operate responsibly.
In order to address issues that affect more than one community or whole areas, AKF is working to develop commune-level socio-economic development plans and engaging with government to secure resources for local priorities. In order to increase the sustainability of village organisations, AKF is aiming to increase active membership (and therefore revenue from fees) in the coming years.
Agriculture, which is one of the Mopti region's primary activities, is also the main source of both food and revenue for the region’s inhabitants. To date, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) has trained over 25,000 farmers on improved farming techniques and approaches, including 5,000 women who operate communal vegetable gardens as small enterprises.
AKF’s activities to date have focused on establishing Farmer Field Schools (FFSs) as a way of bringing farmers together for knowledge sharing and training, specifically on the production of millet, sorghum, vegetables and rice. AKF also promotes agroforestry activities such as the establishment of nursery groups and their capacity building.
AKF has also introduced conservation agriculture in the programme area, which aims to improve productivity whilst also addressing environmental concerns around soil and water management. Nearly 1,900 hectares (nearly 4,700 acres) have been regenerated through farmer-assisted natural regeneration.
Increasingly, AKF is working to link farmers to markets so that they can sell their surplus production. This includes improving farmers’ access to pricing information in different markets, and providing training to producer groups and farmers’ cooperatives on post-harvest handling of products, potential for processing crops (for example by drying them) to increase their value, and improving marketing skills through warrantage.
