Women sell fruit and vegetables at a market in Sikasso, Mali.

Promoting Dialogue to Build Peace in Mali .

Peace, Stability, and Transition | Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding | Stabilization | Peacebuilding and Reconciliation
Africa

Technical Assistance to the Civic Engagement: Identity and Citizenship Project

Project Dates: January 2020 - December 2020
Achieving stability in Mali will require the peace process to include all groups that wield power and influence.

Since 2012, Mali has faced a succession of violent conflicts. This violence has fractured Mali’s political landscape, with several warring factions holding power in different parts of the country. In Mali’s Sahel region, local and international NGOs are promoting dialogue among influential groups to revitalize the stalling peace process, reduce violence, and deliver long-term stability.

This program supports a coalition of Malian NGOs in running community-based peacebuilding activities in Sikasso and the surrounding areas. Chemonics improves conflict-focused NGOs’ organizational management and ability to deliver evidence-based peace and stabilization work. 

Chemonics builds local NGOs’ capacity by conducting training workshops for them, teaching them how to construct effective conflict programs that consider warring groups’ needs and motivations to find common ground and resolution. The workshops equip participants to apply the “Elite Bargains and Political Deals” theory to understanding local conflicts. Using the approach, participants research the informal power structures that underpin conflict and translate this evidence into “conflict narratives” that clarify warring groups’ motivations. The program organizes regular peer-to-peer learning sessions for peacebuilders to monitor activities’ effectiveness and share their experiences using Elite Bargains and Political Deals approaches.

Project Goals


  • Expand the base of evidence that informs peace and stabilization activities in Mali
  • Facilitate the application of the Elite Bargains and Political Deals theory to conflict-resolution activities
  • Provide monitoring and evaluation for the program to ensure the continual improvement of activities and to share learning
  • Improve financial and administrative management of the NGO consortium’s delivery of local programming

This project is known in French as “Assistance Technique au Projet Engagement Civique: Identité et Citoyenneté (AT-PECIC).” The project is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

Partners

  • UK government’s Stabilisation Unit
  • Association Malienne pour la Survie au Sahel
  • Alliance Malienne pour Refonder la Gouvernance en Afrique
  • Association pour la Citoyenneté et la Résilience par des Actions Communautaires
  • Club Education Actuelle au Mali

*Banner image caption: Women selling fruit and vegetables  at a market in Sikasso, Mali.