LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mali: Niger River
built 642 days ago
Other Donors: France and the United States are Mali's first and second largest bilateral partners respectively. Other significant bilateral programs include Canada, Germany, and Japan. Direct bilateral budgetary support is provided by France, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Algeria ... have bilateral programs. Bilateral assistance is channeled to: infrastructure construction, decentralization, the cotton sector, education, health, the judiciary, microfinance, the Niger River, and energy. The World Bank is involved in rural development, budget support, health, education and democratic governance.
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Attempts to use the waters of the Niger to make Mali the breadbasket of West Africa stalled at an early stage of development, and other French development projects progressed little beyond providing a minimal road network linking major towns. Most of the French colonial energy was directed to more obviously profitable areas such as Senegal and the Côte d’Ivoire, leaving Mali on the eve of independence as a sleepy backwater with a legacy of underdevelopment.
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A landlocked country in northwestern Africa, Mali covers an area of 482,077 square miles (1,248,574 square kilometers). It is bordered by Senegal and Mauritania on the west, Algeria on the northeast, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso on the southeast, and Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea on the south.
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It is helpful at this point to take a look at the economic background against which political developments in Mali are taking place. Neither in the narrow sense of conventional economic indicators, nor in a broader sense encompassing the parameters of population and environment, is the picture encouraging. Mali remains one of the poorest nations in West Africa, with a per capita GDP of $820, and one of the least developed and diversified, with 80% of the workforce engaged in either agriculture or fishing the Niger.
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Most of Mali, in West Africa, lies in the Sahara. A landlocked country four-fifths the size of Alaska, it is bordered by Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Côte d'Ivoire. The only fertile area is in the south, where the Niger and Senegal rivers provide irrigation.
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Mali is active in regional organizations. It participates in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic Monetary Union (UEMOA) for regional economic integration; Liptako-Gourma Authority, which seeks to develop the contiguous areas of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso; the Niger River Commission; the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS); and the Senegal River Valley Development Organization (OMVS).
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Niger River