Natural Resources and Decentralization: Local Institutions' Role in Co-Management and Local Conflict Resolution in the Mopti Region

Abstract

"Since the socio-political changes of 1991, Mali has chosen an institutional development strategy closer to local institutions and the rising collectivities. In order to lead efficiently this ambitious program and measure the real stakes, these local institutions, having been enduring till now many economic, political and social mutations, want to integrate more and more the institutional domain of the society on the way of democracy. This has been noticeable for some years with the starting of decentralization (constitution of GREM Regional Group of Surveys and Mobilization, team for territorial boundaries setting, village arrangements for territorial boundaries settings, communal elections).

"In the dynamics of this process evolution, the Delta region of Mopti with its problems and its ecological specificity, presents a rich field of experience in practice. For three decades, we have been aware of local institutions work crisis and disorganization towards other actors and we noticed the supremacy exerted by the State through the system of administration known hitherto.

"The basic question is to know whether the local institutions for natural resources management can face the new responsibilities because, till now, these structures have lived in the shadow of the State administrations thought and domination through the chiefs of village who exert a hybrid power. They are the local administration representatives and sometimes activities coordinators of local resources management or members of traditional institutions.

"Facing the stakes and directing of decentralization, emergent local institutions wish in this way to have a position and they are favourable to an intellectual assimilation of the theoretical and practical tools for the process in order to play the role of real actors on the field. The different thoughts going on lead to a good identification of these emergent local institutions for the creation of a new synergic vision in the new development space that is the rise of communes. This is the reason why the association 'Eveil', being a private operator for development, gave itself up to support institutions emergence with an efficient pedagogic approach giving a value to human resources (in French Méthode VRH) and reinforcing a convergence of the civil society. This experience of Eveil is in consistency with the institutional process begun since 1991 and it deserves to be better known as a real basis for the civil society in the new communes development."