At the end of the morning of Thursday, April 20, the sun is inclement in the sky of the city of Kayes and is burning the earth. Somewhere in “Legal Ségou”, a neighborhood of the city, Omar is busy repairing a backpack whose chain has dropped. For now, that’s all he can do. But, “I expect to go to France soon.” There is nothing here, everyone leaves. As Soninké, I too have to go and travel around the world, to make money for myself, “he says, with his eyes fixed on the bag he is still struggling to repair. These are words that characterize the ambient state of mind.
In this region, located about 600 km northwest of Bamako, the capital of Mali, migration is a social phenomenon that clocks conversations throughout the day. How will he rally Europe? “By the sea like the others, Omar. I know friends who died a few months ago during the crossing but my belief is that everything is a matter of destiny. Friends, cousins and other strangers continue to die in the Mediterranean.
The macabre counting continues far from the spotlight of the media, with the sinking of makeshift boats off the Libyan coast, on which are young people from the region. In July 2015, 110 young Malians were killed. They were almost all from the Bafoulabe circle, south-east of Kayes. But the young people continue to leave, says Ali, station manager in a transport company.
“As far as the Kayes region is concerned, migration is a cultural fact, because the Soninke, who are the majority here, are great travelers. The first waves of departure in 1973-74 were consecutive to the drought, people were leaving for the countries of the sub-region. They then began to turn to Europe, including France around 1984″, explains Demba Thiam, 62 years old, coordinator of the Association of Returning Migrants in Kayes (AMRK). Established in 1997, the AMRK is responsible for the reception and orientation of returning migrants as well as awareness of the phenomenon of illegal emigration. At the headquarters of the association not far from the market, this former agronomic engineer, his face puffed by beards, has been working on migration issues since 1995.
Various factors
According to Sega Sow, director of the Regional Development Agency (ADR), this was a “food migration”: “We are in a Sahelian zone, rainfall doesn’t expectations. Especially in the north of Kayes where it rotates around 500 to 600 mm per year. And most migrants leave this area to seek other means of subsistence, to help the family”.
In 2016, the national report on human development, entitled “Migration, human development and poverty alleviation in Mali”, carried out by the Government and its international partners, explains the phenomenon by the lack of employment opportunities, insufficient income and the need for external input. In addition to declining productions and poverty. But it is also linked, according to the report, to the socio-cultural considerations in the region. “In Kayes, staying is contrary to mentality and logic”, the report says, adding that 7% of Malian migrants in Europe come from this region.
“Egypt is the gift of the Nile, the Kayes region is the gift of migration.”, says, with a big smile on the face, Boubacar N’Diaye, head of the technical department at the Kayes Regional Council. He places the origin of the phenomenon at the time of the Ghana empire: “Since that time, the Soninkés have a natural tendency to go out, to go and see what is happening elsewhere. But there are other factors, such as weather conditions and cyclical and structural situations with the injunctions given in the Structural Adjustment Program of the Breton Woods institutions “.
Progressively, those who are abroad have developed their villages, therefore the region. They invested in the basic social and health infrastructures (schools, health centers, mosques, water supply…) before the decentralization of the municipalities, as Demba Thiam explains”, the State was superbly absent from the region”. Through associations of nationals created wherever they are, migrants contribute to make these investments. For example, this is the case in Fégui, on the border of Mali and Senegal, a village of about 5,000 inhabitants in the Kayes circle, most of whom live in France. In this zone, the Association “Give a smile to Figui”, composed mainly of the 3rd generation of migrants from the municipality living in Europe, has carried out projects for the management of gray water, solid waste, paving of the main streets.
The association has also installed sumps at the main streets’ level to prevent diseases such as malaria, with the support of ENDA Tiers-Monde, located in the city of Kayes. Sawadi Diallo, project manager at ENDA-Mali in Kayes, points out that “Give a smile to Fégui” is pursuing other initiatives such as the electrification of the health center, the town hall, the reception center, the school, the madrassa and the various mosques at the municipality level as well as the main streets that have been paved. It also proposes equipping the health center with medical imaging equipment.
The electrification process began in 2016, with the support of “Electricity Without Borders”. “Development at the grassroots level in the municipalities is the result of migrants”, according to the Regional Development Agency (ADR). “The State is doing something but it is not enough and the needs are growing”, said Sega Sow, director of ADR, who praised the migrants’ contribution during the interview he wanted to grant Sahelien.com.
In 1997, a round table was held in Kayes, supported by the French Cooperation, during which a “co-development” project was initiated in which migrants participate in the financing of development actions in their territory. It was headed by Tiébilé Dramé, leader of PARENA and Minister of Arid and Semi-Arid Zones at the time. “They went from the fact that despite all the financial manna that migrants send, it did not get the region moving”, decrypts Mrs. Maguiraga Mariam Camara, who for 13 years ran the Kayes cell of the GRDR (Migration, Citizenship, Development). An association established under French law, created following the meeting of French aid workers, who worked in the Senegal River basin (Tabacounda, Guidimakan, Kayes) in 1963. In 2008, the economic forum “eco-8” will follow, organized by the Regional Council to present the whole niche of wealth that the region possesses and to encourage migrants to invest.
Significant money transfers
Direct transfers to the Kayes region amount to nearly 21 billion Francs CFA a year, according to the Regional Council. According to Boubacar N’Diaye, from 1997 to 2011, migrants helped finance 544 water projects, 152 in education, 302 infrastructure projects and 49 health projects. To this must be added the creation of 133 income-generating activities: mills, cooperatives, butcheries, dump trucks, etc.
The Regional Development Agency has identified 480 migrant associations in France that are formalized and today form the Coordination of Circle Development Associations in the Kayes region of France (CADERKAF). The Coordination has signed a tripartite partnership with the Regional Council of Kayes, the Regional Council of Ile de France Region in the decentralized cooperation framewok: 7 public high schools have been computerized within the framework of this partnership and electrification projects are ongoing. “The impact is there, but I don’t know if it can be measured in economic terms. It is difficult to find indicators, especially since the initial goal of these migrants was to support the family”, says Ms. Maguiraga Mariam Camara.
Reorienting investments
Today, the relay in the development of the region has been taken by decentralized cooperation. At the level of the Regional Council, there is a reflection on how to redirect migrants’ investments towards productive projects in the framework of economic and regional development “which we are promoting. “Our strategy is to mobilize the Kayes diaspora around productive projects. That’s what we’re working with CADERKAF. Migrants also have expertise that they transfer to us. Most of the cooperation signed across the region has been sparked by migrants”, N’Diaye explains. This will give young people jobs, and thus “settle” them.
But despite all these socio-sanitary investments, the problem of opening up the region remains a Chinese puzzle for migrant associations. During the winter, “the medical evacuation of the patients is problematic because of the state of the roads. Transport between a village and the city of Kayes can cost twice the Bamako-Kayes route”, says Sawadi Diallo. The village farmers who produce are faced with the same problem: they can not transport their products and compete in the market of the city of Kayes.
This situation seems to inhibit the efforts of migrants. Chaotic, dotted with crevices and holes, the road to Kayes shakes the vehicles, and breaks the backs of their passengers.
Boubacar Sangaré (Kayes, Special Envoy)