Mali - Poverty Reduction Project

The Poverty Reduction Project is designed in response to the Government’s concerns contained in the national poverty reduction Strategy (SNLP) and falls within the framework of the Government’s decentralization policy. It aims to contribute to poverty reduction in Mali. The expected outcomes are: i) Increase in the incomes of direct the beneficiaries; ii) Improve access of the poor to micro-credit; iii) Increase in the number of women involved in an income-generating activities; iv) Increase in the number of community micro-projects; v) Increase in the essential consumer expenditure (food, housing, health, schooling) of the populations in the project area; vi) Increase in the financial resources of the communes: and vii) Improvement of the socio-economic indicators in the intervention zones (better access to drinking water, health services and elementary school attendance by the poor). The project has three components, namely: (i) sensitization, capacity building and monitoring and evaluation; (ii) development of micro-finance and the basic socio-economic infrastructure; and (iii) administrative and financial management of Social Development Funds (SDF) by the SDF Management Unit.