Mali

In Mali the process of preparing a PRSP was relatively long-drawn-out, partly because of the way it interacted with the timetable of political change in the country. This article explains how this had some benefits in terms of a maturing of government, NGO and donor attitudes in a nation that has been both highly aid-dependent and the focus of DAC-led efforts to improve aid co-ordination. It is argued, however, that significant constraints remain to transforming this good will into effective anti-poverty action, including weak policy-making capacities and incentives in government service, the slowness of public finance reform and the uneven progress in eliminating supply-driven aid and lending, and the use of parallel funding channels