Waging Peace:  Mali

Encouraging Sustainable Development and International Cooperation

The Carter Center and the government of Mali have a strong partnership through existing disease eradication and agriculture programs. To make these efforts sustainable, the government of Mali invited the Carter Center's Global Development Initiative to work with the government and Malian civil society to strengthen democratic institutions needed to establish realistic and coordinated development priorities; facilitate citizen input into setting those priorities; improve government management of development policies, programs, and projects; and build the government's capacity to coordinate its needs with international financial institutions and donor countries.

Helping To Establish a New Democracy

The Carter Center started its work supporting Malian democracy in 1998, when President Alpha Oumar Konaré and the Collectif des Partis Politiques de l'Opposition (COPPO) invited Center representatives to Mali, shortly after Konaré's re-election. COPPO is an alliance of political parties competing with the dominant Alliance pour la democratie au Mali, known as Adema, which counts Konaré as one of its prominent members.

On this initial excursion, The Carter Center intended to facilitate discourse in talks regarding COPPO's involvement in future elections. At the time, COPPO would not recognize the Adema government's legitimacy, claiming, despite international elections observer reports to the contrary, that the May and July 1997 elections were fraudulent. The issue remained unresolved at the conclusion of the Center team's visit, as the disputing parties could not establish terms for joint meetings. Nevertheless, even with uncertainties about electoral integrity fueling conflict for Mali's government, the Center's separate meetings with the alliances indicated that headway could be made on several issues. All parties wanted to address concerns over the accuracy and reliability of elections, proposing measures to cultivate an environment more suited for democracy. Read full text >

Election Reports                

View Carter Center election reports for Mali >

Promoting the Right of Access to Information

In February 2004, the Carter Center's access to information project began working with the Office of the President of Mali and the Institutional Development Commission of the Ministry of Public Administration, State Reform, and Institutional Relations to improve transparency and good governance in the Malian administration. The Carter Center, members of Malian civil society, media representatives, parliamentarians, and donors developed an initial analysis of the laws and practices that shape information flows in Mali and identified different options for improving public access to information. A Strategy for Access to Information (SAISA) was developed in 2005, and the pilot phase implementation of the SAISA began in early 2006. The SAISA steps included building a single-entry point for users to effectively access information, establishing a plan for archiving documents, training civil servants, developing a communication campaign to raise awareness about the SAISA, and creating activities to engage civil society in the process.

A global review of the SAISA process was conducted at the end of 2007 to draw specific conclusions from the pilots on the measures necessary to ensure an effective access to information culture in existing Malian legal and cultural conditions and to provide recommendations on how Mali could move to a more comprehensive ATI culture. Following the review, the access to information process was deepened within the existing pilots and expanded to other relevant agencies.

Read more about the Carter Center's access to information work in Mali >