I. CONTEXT AND JUSTIFICATION
When it comes to facing the multiple internal and external challenges imposed on Mali, our country, the advantages are plentiful: a mostly young population open to the world, a significant potential of natural resources (mineral, vegetable and water resources), a widely diverse cultural heritage and a forever solid social asset. All this human and geographical wealth makes it unfair for people from Mali to consider this as a poor country. Our country faces well-known hardships which can be overcome by mobilizing all the country’s children.
Over a century of political and economic authoritarianism implemented by a colonial power and maintained, despite its independence, by a paternalistic and centralistic State have brought disadvantages, which have turned into the difficulties to be faced today by the people from Mali: Rural and urban communities whose conflict regulation methods have ceased to work and which are stuck in non-stop crises; Poverty, competition for access and inequalities spread while natural resources are diminished; Young people who get desperate and look for salvation outside the country, risking their own lives; A people who are quickly getting urbanized in cities which turn out to be harder to handle; A real economy installed on the informal; and, finally, a State and public institutions which find it difficult to manage the public space.
What are the reasons for this paradox? One of the first reasons, which leads all the others, is that from our independence till today, i.e. for more than half a century, initiative-taking for the future of the country has been almost exclusively in the realm of the State and its administration. The development objectives, the strategies and the necessary means to reach them have always been identified in a very bureaucratic way, under direct surveillance of funds providers, on whom we depend for financial resources. The other economic and social actors – that is, the majority of men and women from Mali – have set themselves on a suicidal wait and on the false idea that our salvation may only come with the aid of the international community. The State, based on institutions which cannot be more estranged from everyday life and from people’s references, behaved for a very long time as the only development actor and engine. The difficulties in mobilizing national resources which need to be faced, have led public powers to direct their gaze exclusively to looking for external resources which may not always be inscribed within the national objectives. More and more people from Mali have started to believe that we were trapped in a sort of dead-end street.
The changes implemented since the events on March 26, 1991, with the beginning of significant political, institutional and economic reforms, have opened new perspectives which may help to lead the country away from this dead-end street. Globalization, the growing inter-dependence between countries from the same region and the birth of new local de-centralized associations call for the creation of new forms of public management.
As clear inter-dependences on various levels (from local to global) are verified, it is necessary to define new ways for actors who take part in public management to associate. In order to reverse the current on-going tendencies by means of which more and more actors focus on strategies of individual survival and identity retreat, a citizens’ assembly from Mali towards «a new beginning» may allow for the elaboration of a collective vision of the future of our country and may help to draw up the strategies to be implemented so as to achieve it, because no hardship can resist a people who stand up and march.
II. OBJETIVE AND EXPECTED RESULTS
The aim of the citizens’ assembly in Mali is to find a shared vision of the crisis that is blocking our country’s evolution and the perspectives to exit it, starting from the various socio-professional areas and spreading to all of the country’s scales, even the municipal scale. This process mainly intends to make the perspectives from the various socio-cultural and professional layers in Mali converse so that common priorities and strategies may emerge.
The results expected from this project are :
- the identification of common values, interests, challenges and commitments which are the foundation for the people from Mali’s will to cohabitate
- the identification of the main changes expected by the people from Mali
- the construction of common perspectives for a development that respects both the geographical and socio-professional diversity of the situations and the actors’ viewpoints.
The Citizens’ Assembly from Mali, which aims at producing a collective project for new perspectives starting from the local level, is a process which will involve all the categories of socio-professional actors and all territory scales (from municipalities to the national level), and it will developed throughout several weeks.
These are the results we expect at the end of the citizens’ assembly process :
- a proposals’ agenda for each circle
- a regional proposals’ agenda for each region
- a national Document, «Building Mali from local perspectives »
III. METHODOLOGY OF IMPLEMENTATION
Even though the area of Mali (1,240,000 km2) and the dissemination of its people do not allow work in all communities and all the circles from the country, the citizens’ assembly from Mali will mobilize a sample of actors from all socio-professional categories in all regions and in the Bamako District. This mobilization will begin on a municipal level and it will reach a national level. An additional reflection on Mali’s relations with its neighbors, other African countries and other continents will be carried out in order to avoid being locked up in the narrow framework of the country’s present frontiers which has several ties abroad.
The exercise will revolve around a showcase of 4 to 8 municipalities in 35 of the 46 Circles of the 8 Regions of the country. As regards the Bamako District, the exercise will involve 6 municipalities. The proposals from rural and urban municipalities were determined taking into account each Circle’s socio-demo-cultural characteristics. The connection between different cultural areas of the country and the administrative organization allowed us to select a showcase of circles and municipalities.
Chart : Number of circles and municipalities chosen by region and population involved in the exercise
| Region |
Number of circles |
Number of municipalities |
People involved |
| Kayes |
5 |
22 |
|
| Koulikoro |
5 |
23 |
|
| Sikasso |
5 |
25 |
|
| Ségou |
6 |
28 |
|
| Mopti |
5 |
28 |
|
| Tombouctou |
4 |
21 |
|
| Gao |
4 |
16 |
|
| Kidal |
1 |
6 |
|
| Bamako |
- |
6 |
|
| Total |
35 |
165 |
|
The process of Mali’s Citizens’ Assembly will be developed according to these stages :
❖ 1st stage - on the circle level
A local school will be established within each circle. This school, which will have three delegates (a man, a woman and a teenager) from each of the selected municipalities, will discuss and agree on their values and commitments for the future. The three delegates from each municipality will be selected according to how many people they represent from their municipality. Within this groups, which will have worked on the circle level, a proposals’ committee composed of 5 people selected for their involvement in the debates will be in charge of the drafting of the circle’s Agenda of Proposals (AP). The committee will infer the priorities for the circle and changes that they imply within the agenda while considering the values and commitments coming from the actors of the circle.
Number of participants per circle : 12 to 24 people
Length of the meeting : 2 days (1 day for the school meeting and 1 day for the meeting of the Proposals’ Committee)
Each circle’s meeting will have a moderator and two Special Rapporteurs. The moderator will be selected within the circle and the rapporteurs will be students from universities in Bamako who will receive specific training.
❖ 2nd stage – on the regional level
Five socio-professional groups of five people (25 people total) and five thematic groups of five people (25 people total) will be created in each region. The profile of these groups will be identified according to each region’s own profile.
Each socio-professional group will produce an Agenda of Proposals (AP) related to their expectations, their responsibilities, the type of contribution that the group thinks they can make towards change in the region, and the kind of proposals put forward.
Each thematic group will, in turn, produce a thematic document in which the challenges, medium and long term perspectives, and priorities related to their theme will be identified. Each thematic group will be asked to draft sort, medium and long term proposals.
Each of the circles selected by region will be represented by the 5 members of the Proposals’ Committee.
The delegates from the Proposals’ Committee of the circles, the members of the socio-professional groups and of the thematic groups will create, together, a Regional Agenda of Proposals during a regional meeting. This agenda will introduce the expectations, challenges and perspectives from each region. Moreover, the proposals and contributions that the actors from the region consider they will be able to contribute towards the formulation of proposals will also be presented in this agenda.
In Bamako, each of the six municipalities selected will be represented by 10 delegates. Socio-professional and thematic groups will be implemented both within the Bamako District and the regions, which will each produce a document. A Bamako agenda will be drafted for the District.
Number of Participants per Region :
- Socio-professional groups: 25 people
- Thematic groups: 25 people
- Circles’ Proposals’ Committees: 20 to 30 people, according to the region (except Kidal which has 5)
Length of the meeting : 2 days (1 day for the group meeting and 1 day for the regional meeting)
For the Bamako District :
- Representatives from the municipalities: 60 people
- Socio-professional groups: 25 people
- Thematic groups: 25 people
The Bamako District meeting will last as long as the ones for the regions.
Each of the groups and proposals’ committees meetings will have a moderator and two special rapporteurs. One moderator and two rapporteurs will be selected for the regional meeting.
❖ 3rd stage – on the national level
Five national socio-professional committees of nine members, each from the five socio-professional groups implemented in the regions and the Bamako District, will be created for the national meeting. Each national socio-professional committee will draft their own Agenda of Proposals.
The five regional thematic groups will be assembled in nine-members thematic groups. On the national level, two or three thematic groups could also be identified. Each national thematic group will draft a document with a diagnosis, perspectives and proposals.
A national meeting will group the national socio-professional delegates and the national thematic groups. The regions and the Bamako District each will be represented by three regional delegates who will help with their regional agenda. A national document entitled “Building Mali from local perspectives” will be born from this national meeting.
Number of participants in the national meeting :
- National socio-professional committees: 45 people (9 X 5)
- National Thematic groups: 55 to 60 people (11 or 12 X 5)
- Regional delegates: 27 people (3 X 9)
Length of the national meeting : two days (one day for the national thematic, socio-professional meetings and one day for the national meeting)
The socio-professional and thematic meetings will have a moderator and two rapporteurs each. The national meeting will have a moderator and two rapporteurs.
A general rapporteur and two assistants will be selected from all those rapporteurs, who will draft the national document.
the Citizens' Assembly in Mali
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