Mali

Mali was once a land of great kingdoms, rich from the gold-and-salt trade in cities like Timbuktu. Today, in the UN Human Development Report, Mali is ranked the fifth poorest country in the world. And the spreading Sahara Desert threatens what little farmland the country has.

When LWR worked with a women’s shallot-growers collective in an arid part of Mali, one of the women told us, “Just give us water. We can do the work, and God will provide the growth.” So LWR helped the community build irrigation reservoirs.

Without this water, these women’s efforts did not earn enough for them to support their families. Now, the women have quadrupled their harvests and can produce three crop cycles rather than one in a year. They can send all their children — even the girls — to school.

Your donations help LWR combat poverty in Mali on many fronts.

• Improving irrigation systems

• Using existing networks of farmers and financial institutions to spread malaria prevention and treatment messages to more than 400,000 people

• Promoting in-demand, drought-tolerant and pest-resistant crop varieties that enable farmers to harvest earlier and sell more
• Repairing and protecting crop irrigation systems
• Introducing labor-saving processing technologies that help farmers maximize their time and their profits

13,010,209
TOTAL POPULATION

$680
GNI* PER CAPITA

47.4%
AT OR BELOW POVERTY LINE

49 years
LIFE EXPECTANCY

44% (rural)
ACCESS TO IMPROVED WATER SOURCE

36%
ACCESS TO IMPROVED SANITATION