ASC-075287668-2887-01

CREATING MALI 65to higher ranks to prepare for the growing autonomy of the colonies. The processwas however severely slowed down by the reluctance of both the Ministryof Overseas Territories and local European staff to see large numbers of colonialadministrators made redundant and swelling the administration in themetropole. Thus, faced with a lack of trained civil servants, after independencelarge numbers of Malians with higher levels of education but with hardly anyadministrative experience, among whom many schoolteachers were deployed tostaff the fledgling administration, leaving gaps in the staffing of other institutions.Thus, the newly independent state started with a lack of both manpowerand means.In his speech preceding the Malian declaration of independence ModiboKeita made it clear that Mali would ‘take the socialist option, derived from Malianrealities, grafted on successful experiences elsewhere’. 114 Malian Socialismwas, like the policies of many other African regimes, described as ‘AfricanSocialism’. The regime envisioned the development of the country throughState planned economy, directed by the Comité National de Planification et deDirection Economique, indirectly presided over by Modibo Keita. This wasnothing new per se, as the colonial economy of Soudan Français had been plannedsimilarly in four-year plans drawn up by the FIDES since 1949. In practiceplanning in independent Mali meant strengthening the agricultural sector, whileat the same time constructing a complementary industrial sector and supportivestate enterprises almost from scratch. The latter was new, as the colonial planshad never invested in the secondary sector. The first plan in effect in independentMali dated from 1959, hence shortly after the formal independence ofthe Soudanese Republic, sovereign in its economic course. This plan was drawnup almost exclusively by foreign experts, among them a number of colonialadministrators. The team was headed by the Egyptian economist Samir Amin,but included Jean Benard, a student of the French Marxist Charles Bettelheim,lecturer at the EHESS in Paris and responsible for the economic planning ofGuinée (Conakry); Jean Leroy, a Marxist colonial administrator specialised inagriculture and finance; and Eli Löbel, an Israeli planner. 115 In fact, trainedeconomists were almost totally absent among the French African elite, theSenegalese Mamadou Dia being the only AOF politician holding a degree inEconomy. The first four-year plan these men drew up was readjusted to economicrealities into a five-year plan in October 1961. 116 Since Mali was essentiallya rural society, social and economic policy remained based on the114 Keita, M. 1965: 7-12.115 Jones, W. 1976: 115.116 Société Nationale d’Etudes pour le Développement, S.N.E.D. 1980.