Mali - Livestock Sector Development Support Project

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings for the Livestock Sector Development Support Project for Mali were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the monitoring and evaluation quality was substantial. Some lessons learned included: promoting productive partnerships between livestock SMEs and financial institutions and providing the needed liquidity for fostering transformational pathways that link pastoral herders to lucrative markets. Project-supported activities, such as technical assistance to livestock SMEs to formulate bankable investment proposals and to banks to provide suitably adapted financial products to livestock SMEs, led to a significant increase in the SMEs’ turnover. These SMEs were able to purchase large numbers of animals from pastoral systems, fatten them, and sell them in lucrative markets in Mali and the subregion. This approach can be adopted for similar countries in the Sahel that have similar production systems. Effective communication, transparency, continuous sensitization, and outreach campaigns are critical to the success of matching grant schemes. Some community members not selected for matching grants expressed dissatisfaction with the project, alleging exclusion. To avoid this, one needs clear criteria, robust communication tools, inclusive and transparent sensitization strategies, and outreach campaigns on how the criteria are administered for people to understand that they are not being excluded unfairly.