Mali: balance sheet and economic situation on the occasion of 60 years of independence
Audio 02:21
An aerial view of Bamako, the capital of Mali (illustrative image).
GettyImages
By: Stanislas Ndayishimiye
6 min
Sixty years after Mali's independence, the agro-pastoral sector remains one of the main pillars of the country's economy, with cotton as a source of foreign exchange.
Despite a population familiar with regional trade and the increasingly growing importance of the mining sector, Mali still occupies the last places in the ranking of the human development index.
Brief assessment of the Malian economy since the country's independence.
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With 17 billion dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) for a population of approximately 20 million people, Mali is today among the countries whose GDP per capita is less than 1000 dollars.
The political independence acquired 60 years ago, has it led to economic independence?
Hamed Sow, Doctor of Production Economics and former Minister
:
“It
all depends on what is meant by the term economic independence.
If it is a question of saying that we are highly dependent on the international economy, that is to say that we export raw products and that we import manufactured products, we can indeed say that we have a form dependence on the international economy.
Today, we are almost 21
million Malians, we have quadrupled the number of the population
;
our GDP (we do not have the exact figures for the 1960s) from 1968 to 2018, was also multiplied by four.
In terms of per capita GDP, it is now nearly $ 900.
"
Mali applied good economic policies from independence in 1960 until 1968. Policies inspired by the Soviet bloc of the time, followed by liberalization of the economy which did not produce the development leap discount.
In fact, the evolution of Mali's economy since independence has always been a reflection of the political situation.
The fruit of economic liberalization benefits a handful of Malians
The effective liberalization of the economy after the failure of the structural adjustment program imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1980s, was accompanied by a defect that Malians are struggling to get rid of.
Etienne Fakaba Sissoko, professor of macroeconomics at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Bamako
:
“
Corruption reached an extraordinary level, there was no longer any control in the investment sectors.
This lack of control over investment choices has unfortunately led to strong economic growth of 5%, but without this translating into an improvement in the living conditions of the populations.
"
Impunity for economic crimes means that corruption hinders investment in Mali.
Social and economic inequalities have worsened, with significant disparities in access to basic social services, underlines Etienne Fakaba Sissoko.
“
There are just as many fairly rich and well-off populations in urban areas, as many very poor populations in rural areas, who lack everything.
"
The security and political crises that Mali has been experiencing since 2012 have slowed down the economic growth that the country could have recorded.
And now, with the coronavirus pandemic, the growth rate forecast for this year has fallen to 0.9%, down from the 5% forecast before the onset of the health crisis, according to the IMF.
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Mali
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