Mali Remains a Country of Emigration and Transit, IOM Migration Profile Confirms
A migration profile of Mali released today finds that this
landlocked West African country remains essentially a country of
emigration, although increasing numbers of irregular migrants
appear to transit through Mali on their way to Europe via the
Maghreb countries.
According to the report, demographic growth, poverty, increased
unemployment and difficult climatic conditions continue to push
many Malians to migrate internally from rural to urban areas,
within the West African region and beyond.
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"http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/Mali_Profile_2009.pdf"
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target="_blank" title="">Migration au Mali: Profil National
2009
Based on the 2000 Census Round Data, the report estimates the
number of Malians abroad to be in excess of 1.5 million, with a 32
per cent living and working in Côte d'Ivoire, 28 per cent in
Burkina Faso, 10 per cent in Guinea, 6 per cent in Nigeria and 5
per cent in Ghana.
The remainder are thought to be employed in OECD countries,
primarily in industry, construction, agriculture and fishing. Most
of them have a low level of education.
However, the report notes that Mali is confronted with a certain
brain drain, since 15 per cent of Malian university graduates
emigrated during the 1995-2005 period. In the health sector, 23 per
cent of Malian doctors and 15 per cent of nurses found employment
in nine developed countries, with France remaining the favoured
destination.
Despite the country's political commitment in favour of regional
integration, the report notes that immigration to Mali remains very
limited with an estimated 164,000 migrants representing just 1.4
per cent of the total population in 2005. Immigration to Mali is
mostly regional, with migrants coming from Burkina Faso (23 per
cent), Ghana (13 per cent), Guinea (10 per cent), Benin (9 per
cent) and Niger (8 per cent).
Although data on transit migration remains scarce, the report
states that Mali seems to have become an important point of
passage, with routes linking countries in Central and West Africa
to the Maghreb and Libya.
As for remittances, they reached 212 million USD in 2007,
representing 3.3 per cent of the country's GDP. Although
remittances are mostly used to improve the living conditions of
families left behind, the emergence of structured migrants'
associations has increased the share of funds used for social and
productive investments.
In the Western region of Kayes, the report notes that migrants'
associations in France have funded over the past decade more than
220 community projects in dozens of villages.
The IOM profile, which is funded by the European Union, the
Belgian Development Cooperation and the Swiss Federal Office for
Migration, says that the Government of Mali has achieved some
success in drawing on the expertise of its diaspora by encouraging
the return of qualified migrants through programmes such as the
UNDP-implemented Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals
(TOKTEN) programme.
It notes efforts deployed to incorporate migration into the
National Strategic Framework on Development such as the priority
solidarity fund for co-development programme established with
France to support the activities of associations, facilitate the
mobilization of remittances and strengthen ties between emigrant
youths and their country of origin.
The report underlines the scarcity of reliable data on migration
as the last general population census in Mali and the only
specialized survey on migration were undertaken more than ten years
ago, and cannot therefore reflect the current trends.
Furthermore, national structures dealing with migration do not
have the capacity to properly manage and analyse data. To
improve data on migration, there is a need to develop and establish
a coherent data management system, involving all relevant partners
and in keeping with the guiding principles of the country's
national plan for statistics.
IOM's migration profile of Mali is available in French at the
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target="_blank" title="">online bookstore.
For further information, please contact:
Frank Laczko
IOM Geneva
Tel: + 41 22 717 9416
Email: flaczko@iom.int