Country profile: Mali
Meningitis epidemics in Mali typically strike during the dry season and tend to peak around April, the hottest month. |
Mali is a landlocked, sub-Saharan country covering 1.25 million sq km. Sixty-five percent of Mali's land area is desert or semi-desert. Droughts are a recurring problem. The country is at the heart of the meningitis belt and routinely reports severe meningitis epidemics. These epidemics typically strike during the dry season (from December to June) and tend to peak around April, the hottest month of the year.
Economy
Despite some favorable economic growth, Mali remains among the world's poorest countries. The economy is strongly dependent on agriculture and cotton. The country has a wide variety of natural resources, but not all are commercially viable. Gold is mined in the southern region, and Mali now has the third highest gold production in Africa. This has mitigated some of the negative effects of the poor cotton markets in recent years. Mali makes efficient use of hydroelectricity, which generates over half of Mali's electrical power. Nearly 80 percent of the population, however, relies on subsistence farming.
Prior to 1995 Mali implemented an economic adjustment program that resulted in somewhat better economic growth, with gross domestic product (GDP) averaging about 5 percent per year. Despite the financial crisis expectations are that Mali managed to sustain this growth rate in 2009.
Demography
Mali's estimated 2009 population was just under 12 million inhabitants with an annual population growth rate of 2.9 percent. Women have, on average, 6.9 children. In 2006 the life expectancy at birth was estimated at 44 years for men and 47 years for women (average 46).
The population is still overwhelmingly rural. The average population density is 10 p/km2. The population is very unevenly distributed: in the north there is an average of 1.1 p/km2, compared to 15.9 p/km2 in the south of the country. Bamako district is the most densely populated.
Mali is a young country. The median age is just 16. It is estimated that about 70 percent of the population is between 1 and 29 years of age—the target population for the meningococcal A vaccination campaign.
Around 50 native African languages are spoken by the people of this ethnically diverse country. French is the official language of government. The Bambara are the largest single ethnic group (36 percent), and Bambara language is spoken by about 80 percent of Malian people. Mali is an overwhelmingly Muslim country (over 90 percent of the population), the remainder hold indigenous beliefs, and there is also a small Christian minority.
Development
Mali is in the bottom ten of the development index compiled by the United Nations Development Program (168 out of 177 countries). Literacy rates are very low at 22.9 percent (32.7 percent for men, 15.9 percent for women). According to 2001 data, a third of Malian children under five years of age are underweight.
Education continues to be a major challenge in Mali; 54 percent of girls and 67 percent of boys are in primary education. These figures mask great variation between rural and urban areas. The education system is plagued by a lack of schools in rural areas as well as shortages of teachers and materials. Endemic poverty is the main reason so few children attend school. Schools are far away, and children often are kept home to work in the fields and so help out in providing family income.
The government has long made access to drinking water a priority in both rural and urban areas by sinking wells and installing pumps. However, in rural areas only 48 percent of people have access to potable water. Furthermore, the infrastructure for good sewage disposal is also poor; countrywide only 45 percent have access to acceptable sanitation, falling to 39 percent in rural areas.
Mali has a vaccination program that by and large functions well. Coverage is typically over 85 percent of target children according to the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). In general, access to health services is poor, particularly in rural areas. There is misdistribution of health care workers; for example, 60 percent of people working in the health sector are employed in Bamako, which represents 12 percent of the Malian population.
Photo: Geoff Ward.
