Note: The menu shows the 36 African countries where Africare has worked, not the other African countries.

 

Mali (Map courtesy of The World Factbook)

Mali

REGION: West Africa
CAPITAL CITY: Bamako
POPULATION: 13,124,000
LAND AREA: Twice the size of Texas

Although Mali is one of the world's poorest countries — the fifth least-developed, according to the U.N. Development Program's 2007/2008 Human Development Index — it enjoys food self-sufficiency and, since 1992, a relatively stable, democratic government. Most of the farming, which occupies 80 percent of the population, takes place in the fertile Niger River basin. Otherwise, less than 4 percent of the land is arable, while 65 percent of the land is either desert or semidesert, astride the Sahara. A 10th of the people are nomads, who move with their livestock herds throughout those arid lands. Long prone to drought, Mali suffers from deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water shortage and high rates of preventable disease. Its principal exports are cotton and gold.
           

Country Stats

Life expectancy: 53.1 years (USA: 77.9)

Under-5 child mortality: 218/1,000 live births (USA: 7/1,000)

HIV prevalence, ages 15-49: [1.3 - 2.1]% (USA: [0.4 - 1.0]%)

Physicians per 100,000 people: 8 (USA: 256)

People undernourished: 29% (USA: 0%)

People with access to safe drinking water: 50% (USA: 100%)

Adult literacy: 24% (USA: 99%)

Annual income, one way to look at it (GDP per capita, PPP US$): $1,033 (USA: $41,890)

Annual income, another way to look at it (GDP per capita): $392 (USA: $41,890)

People living on less than $1 a day: 36.1% (USA: 0%)

(HIV prevalence statistics, UNAIDS. All other statistics, 2007/2008 Human Development Report, UNDP)

 

(Updated, Dec. 18, 2007)