Tag: Mali

An EU-led donor conference agreed on Wednesday (15 May) to provide €3.25 billion to fund a sweeping development plan for Mali, but European donors made clear that the interim government must live up to its promises to democratic and social reforms in exchange for the international lifeline.

The European Union will pledge more than half a billion euros to help Mali rebuild after months of conflict, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday (14 May).

Europe and the United States should worry that the conflict in the Western Sahara is souring relations between Morocco and Algeria, preventing them from working against Islamist violence and extremism, write Dustin Dehez, Alex MacKenzie and Daniel Novotny.

EU foreign ministers are to discuss the political and security situation in Mali next week and prepare for a donors’ conference to help the embattled African state.

UNESCO increasingly counts on partnerships with the private sector to help fund projects, Director General Irina Bokova tells EurActiv. She identified Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Ericsson for being “very open to innovative methods of cooperation”. 

With EU-backed forces advancing across Mali, the need for European and other donors to accelerate the development process in Africa’s poorest regions appears ever more pressing. For development experts a simple, yet unheralded solution exists - planting trees.

After the French intervention, the jihadists in Mali will have an opportunity to use their superior knowledge of the terrain, local indigenous militia relationships, and guerrilla tactics to inflict casualties on their enemies, writes Stratfor. 

On the eve of an EU foreign ministers meeting today (17 January) dedicated to the Mali conflict, an al-Qaeda-linked group seized 41 Westerners at an Algerian gas plant, saying that French President François Hollande had opened ‘the gates of hell’ with his operation in neighbouring Mali.