TRENDS AND IMPACTS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY AGRICULTURE

MALI
Trends and impacts of foreign investment in
developing country agriculture
public authorities to attract private investment.
Secondly, complex and pluralistic land tenure
systems and the limited ability of national
legislation to ensure effective regulation of
the tenure dimension of private agricultural
investment raise important challenges for the
government’s ability to manage investment
in agriculture and for the protection of local
rights that may be affected by investment
projects. Thirdly, legislation has been adopted to
promote investment and regulate its social and
environmental impacts, but the effectiveness
of this legislation in establishing safeguards for
local people and the environment has been
questioned. The next few sections discuss these
three aspects in greater depth.
2.1 A country with major agricultural
potential but facing financing
difficulties
Mali is a landlocked country in the heart of West
Africa, with a surface area of around 1 240 000
km². Its population was 14 517 176 in 2009. 2
Mali shares around 7 200 km of borders with
Algeria to the North, Niger to the East, Burkina
Faso to the SouthEast, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea
to the South, Mauritania and Senegal to the
West. Much of the country is relatively flat, with
rolling plains and low plateaux.
With its very low but steadily rising Human
Development Index, Mali is amongst the poorest
countries in the world. Although the poverty
rate fell over the period 20012006, it is still very
high, with a national average of 47.4 percent in
2006. Geographical variations are substantial:
the poverty rate is 20.1 percent in urban areas
and 73 percent in rural areas (CSRP 20072011).
The country was ranked 175th out of 187 on
the HDI in 2011 (UNDP, 2011). This pattern of
poverty, combined with certain cultural and
historical features, has made Mali the source
of major migration, particularly towards West,
North and Central Africa, as well as Europe and
America.
2 Provisional results, 4th General Census of Population and
Housing.
224
The structure of the Malian economy is
characterized by a predominance of the primary
and tertiary sectors, which accounted respectively
for 36 percent and 35.6 percent of gross
domestic product in 2009 and 2010. 3 This pattern
was expected to remain stable in 2011, with the
primary and tertiary sectors losing a little ground
to the secondary sector. In 2010, growth in real
GDP was held to the same level as 2009 (4.5
percent) but below initial forecasts. 4 Mali presents
considerable agricultural, forestry and pastoral
potential. Rural land is estimated to amount
to 46.6 million hectares, including 12.2 million
hectares of arable land, 30 million hectares of
grazing land, 3.3 million hectares of wildlife
reserves and 1.1 million hectares of forest reserves
(Ministry of Agriculture, 2008). The country has
vast areas suitable for development and irrigation
(2.2 million hectares), substantial water resources
(2 600 km of rivers), considerable biological
diversity, substantial forest and wildlife resources
and large numbers of diverse, adapted livestock
(7.1 million cattle, 19 million sheep/goats, 0.6
million camels, 25 million poultry) (Ministry of
Agriculture, 2006 and 2008).
Nevertheless, agricultural resources are
unequally spread over the national territory,
twothirds of which is desert. In addition, funding
is crucial to the expansion of the agricultural
sector but this is becoming increasingly
problematic.
The modernization of agriculture is one of the
three main objectives of the Rural Development
Master Plan (SDDR), together with environmental
protection and improved natural resource
management. The Master Plan was adopted in
1992 and updated in 2000. The provisions of
the Plan are reflected in various other official
documents. They were taken up by the second
President of the third Republic of Mali just after
his election in 2002 and developed particularly
within the Economic and Social Development
Programme, which he outlined during the
presidential election campaign in 2007 (Toumani
3 www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/fr/countries/west-
africa/mali/
4 www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/fr/countries/west-
africa/mali/