One of our cross cultural trainings was a meeting with the Mayor of Moribabougou.
He came with the president of the Women’s Association because the local elected officials have been mandated to work closely with the local women’s association. They came to talk to us about the decentralization of
Mali.
Decentralization started in the early 1990’s when the one party had been in power since the early 1960’s. During this time there was only one political party that was allowed to have candidates. It took three years after the fall of this regime before other parties could legally participate in the election process. Today they say there are more than 60 different political parties.
Mali is broken down into regions there are nine of them and these are the ones I know; Kyes, Bamako Sikosso, Segou, Mopti, Goa, Timbuktu. From there the regions are broken down into circles which consist of literally a circle of villages. It works a lot like it does in the United States the different levels of local government are responsible for different government tasks. It does seem that one of Mali’s goals is to collect taxes for general improvements. There has been many references to this both in my Small Enterprise Develop training and in this talk. The Mayor said that if a village does not pay taxes there is a good chance that will not receive monitory help from the National Government.
The Mayor was asked what his priorities were for Moribabougou. He said that clean and safe drinking water for the residents here was his biggest priority. We asked the president of the Women’s association too. She said safe drinking water and a high school. It turns out that the schools here only go through middle school and then the children have to Bamako for high school. Many don’t go to high school because they can’t afford the transportation cost. We have been told all along that attending school through high school is mandatory for all Malians and that many rural farmers or herders find away out of it. After these I realized the situation was more complicated then our LCF’s (Language and Cultural Facilitator) have telling us.
One of our cross cultural trainings was a meeting with the Mayor of Moribabougou. He came with the president of the Women’s Association because the local elected officials have been mandated to work closely with the local women’s association. They came to talk to us about the decentralization of 
1 comment:
Hi there. My name is Peter Baldwin. I am an American in Washington DC who has lived in Bamako and in fact married a woman from Moribabougou. (The mayor married us.) I also used to live in the Seattle/Tacoma area, so I know Vashon Island well!
How are you finding Mali? It is my second country. I know and love the people and the culture well.
Anyway, I stumbled across your blog and would like to keep in touch some. I hope to be in Bamako in Late December or Early January, and am trying to find a job there. (I have several irons in the works, through old contacts there.) Perhaps we can meet when I am there. When I do come, I'll let you know, in case there is anything I can bring you. In the meantime, please keep an eye out for an jobs for a bilingual (French/English-- sorry, no Bambara, much to my wife's disappointment) development hand with lots of SME, ICT, and M & E experience in Mali. If you respond to this, I can send you my "coordonées". In the meantime, if you should run across Adama Diallo in Moribabougou, please give him my best. He is good friends with the mayor, and is also my brother-in-law.
Cheers!
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