Sahel Alliance – Launch of a project to support Malian youth (March 20 2018)

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As President Macron announced at the conference in support of the G5 Sahel on February 23 in Brussels, a Sahel Alliance project was launched yesterday in Mali, in the Mopti region.

This €10 million project, referred to as “ACTIF” (support for local authorities and youth focusing on integration and training initiatives), is financed by France, through the French Development Agency. The overall objective is to provide more opportunities to young people in Mopti in terms of training, finding employment and participating in socio-economic development.

The project notably includes a support component aimed at providing training to teachers as well as a literacy module for students, before orientation toward fields that offer job opportunities in the agricultural and renewable energy sectors. The ACTIF initiative will be led by Mopti’s regional council and implemented by a consortium of NGOs and by local authorities.

France’s efforts in the Sahel are based on the premise that sustained efforts in the area of development and local governance are necessary in order to respond to the deep-rooted causes of instability. It is essential to work on strengthening economic activity that will provide employment for young people.

The Sahel Alliance was launched at the initiative of France and Germany on July 13, 2017, in Paris, with the President and Chancellor in attendance. It is a coordinating mechanism for the main development partners of the Sahel States that should facilitate the swifter, more effective and better targeted delivery of aid. The project launched in Mali yesterday illustrates this new thinking, which brings in local actors for projects with rapid impacts targeting the most vulnerable areas of the Sahel.