The economic outlook for Mali revised downwards by the World Bank

A man carrying a bag of rice brought by a humanitarian convoy in northern Mali. (Illustrative image) REUTERS / Adama Diarra

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The World Bank downgrades its economic outlook for Mali.

According to a note entitled “ 

 ”, published in April and made public this weekend, Malian growth should stagnate in 2022. It may even turn negative.

Two factors explain these poor results: the extension of armed violence and the economic sanctions of ECOWAS.

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Since 2012, the number of deaths in Mali has quadrupled and violent events multiplied by six.

First in the North, insecurity has spread to the center of the country, a crucial agricultural region, and more recently to certain economic centers in the South.

The World Bank estimates that the crisis cost 23% of Mali's gross domestic product (GDP) between 2012 and 2018.

The affected regions thus lose non-agricultural jobs.

Households depend more and more on small-scale subsistence agriculture, itself undermined by land pressure and climate change.

In 2021, the poverty rate will reach 44.4%, two points more than in 2019.

Insecurity also affects the finances of local communities which no longer provide basic social services.

In the Kidal region, for example, the vaccination rate has fallen to less than 1%.

The Malian state, for its part, has more than doubled its military spending in ten years, to the detriment of development spending.

Read also: The Malian economy reorients itself in the face of sanctions and payment defaults

Another negative factor is that of the ECOWAS sanctions.

The World Bank estimates that maintaining them for two or more quarters risks plunging the country back into recession.

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• mali

• world Bank