Amadou Toumani Toure : interview

For a very long time, our country has been dealing with streams of population. Oral tradition talks about the first Malian Empire created before the sixth century. It underwent a seven-year draught, and its population migrated toward the west, conducing to the birth of the great Empire of Ghana, the Empire of Mali’s ancestor. 90% of the migrants come from that region. It is both a cultural and a climatic migration. Let’s not forget it is often nature which drives men away as it deprives them of survival means.

In our country, the immigration issue is delicate but it is not taboo. In 2001, according to the Ministry of Malian abroad’s figures, 89.1% of the 4 million Malian emigrants lived in other Western African countries (1). 42,000 of the 80,000 rated in France have papers in order. According to Attali’s recent report, the economical, social and cultural contribution has to be reconsidered, especially regarding the economical impact after 2010. We can see there, an offer to open the frontiers. With globalization, the number of immigrant throughout the world is growing and it will continue to grow in the years to come (2). Yet, we observed and it’s important to underline that more and more women tend to migrate.

The European Union decided to create an Information and Sensibilization to Education Centre in Mali, which will allow applicants for emigration to know if the chosen country requires anything and under which condition he may go there. It is an African pilot centre. But we can’t help to think that the issue on emigration stirs up to much passion. We often need to put things into perspectives since what Malians living in France bring back is more important than the granted bilateral help.
Our country welcomes mixed people in transit. Many students from Benin, Ivory Cost, and Central Africa are studying medicine in Bamako as the faculty is considerably sought after. The local population adapted it-self fairly well to the students’ way of living.

We do have unfit zones in outlying areas, which are lacking a certain type of utilities and where Malian population suffering from rural exodus, live. The government handles it with difficulties.
There is a stream of migration from the country side to the cities but it is only seasonal. Farmers are busy in the fields only six months a year, they come to the city to make money the rest of the time. Many young ladies come to the city to make themselves a trousseau, and many students work during their holiday. We may be able to improve that picky social issue by putting all our efforts in fighting for Malian agriculture which employs more than 80% of the population.

Many conflicts in the world are due to the disastrous distribution of water resources. In Mali, we have two main concerns related to the water issue.
First a Sahelian strip has just been badly touched by the pernicious effects of the dissipation of the environment: Irregular rains, endemic disease starvation…Which immediately caused a rural exodus to Bamako and a youth migration to Europe.
Our second problem is that we do not have water all year long and yet, two of the biggest rivers in Africa happen to flow through our land: the Niger and the Senegal rivers. Our main problem is the control of water.
And controlling water is an essential factor of the agricultural development. We have water, we need to exploit it.
We have the second farmable and liable to flooding water zone of Africa The Niger inland Delta with its 2118.9 billions cubic feet and which cover almost 1544.4 square mile between Djenné, Mopti and Timbuktu.
We have a potential that can be converted into total control over water, especially in the Office of the Niger zone and around the levee of Selingue and of Manantali, and in the Bani with the elevation of the Talo which has just been inaugurated. There also is a lakeside zone partially controlled. Thus between 2008 and 2012: 10,335,600 acres will be converted, among which 6,191,000 acres, will be under absolute control. It will cosy us 212.5 billion CFAF (3). Concerning local irrigation, the inventory of potentially converted zones allowed to identify 89,533,500 acres divided in 483 districts for which we’ll launch an ambitious program in the next few months.
Concerning the big workings, we have to consider the fact that they’re coming together with the pollution issue. For sharing such big rivers means more responsibilities. Forceful measures have been taken concerning the rejection of water and contaminated products in the rivers. The recently created Water Brigade is now in charge of it. We also have water erosion and wind-driven problems with the Niger and another problem with the proliferation of plants. The Ministry of the Environment and Decontamination was given the burdensome task to deal with all the bad effects and try to wipe them out. Forging an African consciousness for the environment the way Al Gore tries to do it, would constitute a fundamental step forward. We are still “organic”, and that’s our best asset. It is time for good measures; for other countries it is already too late.

We are the third producer of gold in Africa, within five years it went up to a 350% progression. But it is big multinational companies that exploit our gold bearing beds as only them, can afford it. Out of seven exploited mines, six are opencast, two are considered to be of worldwide dimensions and one is the most profitable in the world…
The rise of gold exchange decreases the negative effects of the hydrocarbons’ in the State’s Budget. In fact, the State owns 20% of the shares of the mines, and is associated to dividends. More over, companies in charge of the mines being settled in Mali, we can benefit from the collected fiscal tax. Besides, this area generates jobs: 2,700 workers for only one big mine. It represents half the total of the Civil Service.
Our country’s paradox is that it possesses gold. In Bamako, by the Niger, there are still gold wash women who convert their gold powder into domestic and food buyings.


The Malian Agricultural modernization involves new ways of cultivation such as those related to biofuels. Does it raise the question of balance for cotton cultivation in particular ?
Malian cotton is cultivated in the rainiest zone of the country and employs to this day, 3.5 million farmers. The Cotton Industry didn’t cause any problem to the diversification of complementary cultivations such as the corn’s, wheat’s or mil-sorgho’s. Consequently, there is no reason why the second generation of biofuels (4) would. We have huge non exploited spaces which are perfectly adapted to the kind of cultivation in dry climate. It is an asset to us. In fact we started the cultivation 20 years ago as an experimental basis. We even have a little town, Keleya, of 5000 inhabitants where the public electricity is provides by these biofuels as well as all the agricultural and automobile’s energy. We have there big projects in progress.
To continue with cotton, we can produce up to 600,000 tones a year and shortly we’ll be able to produce up to a million a year. Depending on the market rate and fluctuation, farmers will be able to choose alternative cultivations. For instance: 60% of cotton and 40% of first generation biofuels (5), more adapted to their soil. Added to the fact that it would be more salutary for the earth, it would also assure farmers’ income. It is in the agriculture and especially in the Cotton Industry that the battle over Socio economic difficulties our country has to wage is.
Never the less, we know that if the agricultural area is left alone to the market forces, it won’t be able to invest in its intensification. Also, the State, according to the “L.O.A”, (an act passed for the agricultural orientation), promised to dedicate at least 20% of its budget to the agricultural development.
There use to be many acts in favour of agriculture. When we passed the “Loi de Rattachement Agricole”, (an act passed on Agricultural Incorporation), in 2007, we decided to include the whole chain around it: producers, the production, commercialization, transformation and research connected to it, and the funding. The Agricultural Development Funding allows us to concentrate the investment into the agro-pastoral and the land areas.
Hence we are setting integrated development programs for farming lands which are structured around a theme, a certain agriculture, a cultivation… which comes together with measures regarding the partial control of water, education, and health, so that it can improve the locals’ way of life.
To us, anticipating means to get ready to become a big agricultural power, as feeding our people is essential with the massive population growth which currently takes place in the country. Our political wish is to take Malian agriculture to a 10-million cereal production per year before 2012.

We’re trying to re-evaluate the farmer’s status to that of an agricultural producer, as it is a necessity of our time to be recognized for what we’re doing. We’re trying to have the young reconcile with the land by offering professional trainings We also created projects of aids to young private instigators and hold for them at least 10% of our newly developed agricultural land.
Further more to insure future prospects we’ve created in Bamako, not only a Zootechnology Centre but also an Agricultural Research Centre.
The Rural Economy Institute and the Rural Polytechnic Institute together with international researchers rely on the quality and the agro-ecology, thanks to an abide evaluation. They set up a rice culture with a short cycle (70 days) and did the same with Shea whose cycle they reduced to half what it used top be (14 years). Our best weapon is to improve quantity as much as quality.
All the researches are specialized in cultivation and farming, hence they get excellent results, so good that we provide our neighbour Angola with cattle vaccines.

The main problem with the transformation of raw agricultural material lies in the hydrocarbons additional cost. The Eurocouncel which I’m chairing just put forward the rising cost of the barrel of oil: 1$ in 1970 to 130$ today. The whole economical approach is disrupted. Never the less, Cotton Industries are forming, although it took more time than expected. By 2017, we’d like to reach 25% of transformation of Cotton production.

We also have a mango production which includes more than 40 different species and the emergence of a quality sealed mango. Its cost tells us it’s a luxury product both in the northern countries and here. In so far as fruits come to maturation at roughly the same time, we end up feeding our livestock with mangos. It is essential we find a solution to transform the fruits in order to prevent loss and to be able to eat them off-season. We currently are in the implantation phase of the Mango Industry.
We also wish to enhance the development of Animal Industries, by backing up different investment opportunities since we have spread out lands and a popular product in the sub-region, such as the Malian beef which is not contaminated by bovine plague and fed the traditional ways.
Regarding lasting development, our big challenge is the food. Hence all our efforts are turned toward natural resources and have to be serving this challenge.
Seismic researchers may be able to tell us whether or not there are hydrocarbons in our soil before the end of the year. It would be great news for our economy.

Yes, I am. Mali is a country of hope.
If, by 2020-25, there are still in Mali, men with a realistic vision of how to govern and who understand the importance of cohesion and the probity of men, who favour the agricultural development as well as that of infrastructures or competition within the private sectors by promoting women and young people. Then we can be proud of what we’ve done to contribute to the well being of our country.

My country is an old land of tradition which, in its past, dwelled in advanced form of democracy. And it still lives in Malian’s people heart and national sentiment.
In 1236, the Mali’s first Charter was created, a kind of constitution in which it is written that for us the Human body is sacred and sacral. These are the first principle of human civil rights.

To come back to my own experience, well it is a whole which includes this principle. I was born in a very active community. As far as education was concerned, we all lived in groups, according to age and I was taught that the most important thing was not me, but the community!
Then I went to the army, there again lived in a community where we are confronted to discipline, hierarchy and reality. I’ve learnt to respect myself and the command. My being promoted led me to know when to take a decision and to actually take them.

In March, 1991, during 14 months, I’ve taken the country to a turn towards democracy. I was in real contact with the highest responsibilities of the Malian State. Then I stepped back from my position for ten years and opened up to the outside world as well as to the inner Mali. I took part in the eradication of the Guinean Worm, dedicated my self to the fight against Poliomyelitis and met my people in the most remote villages.
The various long missions of mediation I did in Africa, such as the problem in Rwanda, determined certain aspects of my action today. The real loam of my thoughts is the community life.

I was asked what would be, according to my experience, the highest factored marked test if there was a school to become president. It would obviously be common sense. It forged my convictions. I can give you for instances.

Mali is sharing its 4,500 miles of borders with 7 countries. The first thing we need to assure is both the peace and stability of the country. Another problem is that it is so big, the 24th biggest country in the world with its 479,241 square miles. The whole problem remains in connecting the south zone’s products to the consumption zone in the north without distorting the buying power of non productive zones. Having common sense is to support the creation of roads and to let people of Gao benefit from the excess of produced mangos in the exponential region. .
Everything we do must be focused on food sovereignty and should aim at increasing the value of our own products.

Food safety has always been my main concern. From November 2002, we’ve led the Government to adopt a national strategy for food safety which had the goal to satisfy the population essential needs. Hence we created the Food Safety Commissionership.
The first thing the population noticed was that if they were hungry, it was not because we didn’t have enough food but because we didn’t have what they wanted to eat. Some times ago, we had some difficulty to deal with the raising of the price of bread the bakers asked, for the price of a wheat flour bag had doubled, and which we refused. I knew that we could bake 633 breads with a bag of flour which the bakers sold at loss. We offered them a monthly subvention and they chose the amount before we granted it to them. During this month we spoke to the population explaining to them what a supplying problem was, and how it was related to the cost of transportation. We then suggested to bake bread with rice, corn or mil-sorgho flours, or to mix one of them to the wheat flour. Now we use this bread in the Government. If some people only want wheat flour bread, then they have to pay the price for it, for those who changed their eating habits the price of bread didn’t raise. We had to find a common sense alternative and offer them an option they could accept. Our duty is to promote local products, such as for instance rice that is now easy to cook, even for a woman who works outside.

Regarding milk, Mali buys 80 to 90 billion CFAF of it a year and yet we’re mostly a country of rearing. We produce milk, but our problem relies in the fact that we can’t either stock it or transform it by sterilizing it. We don’t have the milk technologies. Instead of loosing it we could learn how to transform it in good Malian cheese such as they do in France for instance. We need once again to change our eating habits, so that we can promote fitted strategies and use local resources. Here, as most of the set ups programs, two conditions are of most importance to us: a change of the mentalities and behaviour, and the necessity for the people to understand it. I’m convinced that Mali will one day be a big cereal and pastoral country, thanks to the effective work of agricultural areas, and the development of Animal Industry. We could, in a reasonable time, cross the line from food safety to food sovereignty by simply distributing products in the country.

You know well that no economic can occur without the government to open up to the outside world as well as inside its own borders. The workings on the roads will cost 631 billion FCFA. That is to say almost 1 billion Euros for 4,693 Km of roads. Thanks to it, we are no longer dependant on the only port Abidjan was to us. New naval links were created with Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Cost and Ghana. Big ports are now trying to court us as we boost up the competition.
In every port zone I named, we have an enclave and a Malian storehouse led by experienced executives and their Malian team. In Mali we respect a reciprocity scale which allows Senegal’s storehouses to deal with sub-regions. Hence an activity line is created, highly profitable to the country. I’m not excluding a road connecting Ghana, Togo, and Nigeria to Gao, where we built a bridge over the Niger.

We’re expecting 300,000 tourists only for this year. They can enjoy our new hotel infrastructures. We offer a different kind of tourism our neighbours do. It’s a cultural one. Mosque of Djénné is one of the biggest monument protected by UNESCO, Dogon is the finial of our cultural heritage. In fact we offer a more specialised tourism which includes music festivals such as the Essakaw Festival which brought 10,000 people in the desert in January. Segou’s festival also called “The Ballafon Triangle” which introduces six countries and their style of music.

In addition to these big events, we have congress centres, a new Hotel Industry and infrastructures and press centres. Hence, we can organise and receive any African forum. The country is ready for any international gathering.

I can easily answer that never once was the world so pessimistic. It is cheap and tremendously paralysed by terror. In Europe where one has no reason not to live happily, people are so scared that they don’t have time to enjoy it. Everywhere, international territory got what it looked for: A step back in front of its borders. Was it the right move?
I remember what my father use to say about men and time: that life is always better when we’re young…More seriously, it is a sure fact that the world never was richer or more pessimistic and in the same time more opened, thanks to new technologies such as internet. But it is also closed because it fears the other. Immigration is no longer seen as an opportunity and the fact that we no longer think is not helping.
Opened and yet withdrawn, that’s the image of the XXI century.
Fortunately, there are some positive actions going on. Many
admirable gatherings take place in Africa, America and especially in Europe. We privilege nations and unification rather than men or just countries. We give up a sovereignty for a bigger, shared one. The economic revolution which occurred when traditional economic poles were inverted is also really important. It enables the emergence of big countries such as China (6), India, Brazil or South Africa. This is a consequence of globalization and it has to be measured!

Simultaneously, we’re confronted to a planetary stake concerning the environment. The planet we live on is no longer what it used to be: a safe place for mankind to live in. We are the victims of big calamities due to the global warming. How could we let it happen? Why weren’t we careful enough by thinking of lasting development? (7)
Not so long ago, countries like ours suffered from the lack of solidarity and ethical behaviour concerning the antiretroviral drugs issue (8).
It feels like countries accept to let go of their national sovereignty by joining a gathering and yet they refuse to share when solidarity is needed.
Politically speaking, we can observe a mutation. I was, for instance, re-elected for the second time as an independent president which is a totally new pattern. I’m happy to see that mentalities evolved to admit one can not govern alone, and that the most important is to understand that everybody, no matter his political opinion, has to participate to the synergy in charge of leading the country.
Lately one of the best examples of this is Germany.
There are so many contradictions in this world we’ll need to wait to find the answers and maybe one day the world will be more peaceful.