SIPRI – Central Mali Project for Security and Development

The three-year project aims to monitor governance, security and development indicators and trends through quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted in Mali’s central regions of Mopti and Ségou. Although much of the early attention to Mali’s security crisis centered around the Northern zones, the Centre has quickly become a hotbed of instability with the emergence of several armed and jihadist groups, ongoing conflicts between pastoralist herders and sedentary farmers, and developmental challenges as a result of instability.

To better understand these issues in depth through a “bottom-up” approach, the project combines the expertises of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and POINT SUD and a mixed research methodology (quantitative and qualitative). By implementing a robust monitoring framework based on Security and Development Indicators (SDIs) tracked every three months through survey questionnaires to a representative sample of the population in the two regions of Segou and Mopti. Every six months, the project is including additional thematic and adaptive questions and supplement the monitoring research with focus groups and qualitative studies in areas of interest. The three-year project “Mali-Centre for Security and Development” is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and its partner, POINT SUD.

Contact: Dr Gregory Chauzal, gregory.chauzal@sipri.org

Article Central Mali: Violence, local perspectives and diverging narratives