This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

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