Mali

National governments in the Sahel, with support from WFP and UNICEF through the joint project Responding to COVID-19 Pandemic through Social Protection Systems in the Sahel, have been working to improve their social protection systems to protect people from the negative impacts of such shocks. This joint project originally had an 18-month duration up to January 2022 and has been extended twice until December 2024 to provide additional support, considering the continued socioeconomic impact of the pandemic combined with ongoing regional shocks and vulnerability wh

This jointly implemented project supports the Governments of Mali, Mauritania and Niger to provide critical social assistance to populations affected by the impact of COVID-19 in the short and medium term, while strengthening national social protection systems in the medium to long term.

WFP and UNICEF jointly implement the Responding to COVID-19 through Social Protection Systems in the Sahel project as support to the Governments of Mali, Mauritania and Niger to respond to the immediate massive needs generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and other shocks through cash transfers and complementary services as well as to strengthen overall national capacities to adapt and build more shock-responsive, nutrition- and child-sensitive social protection systems in the long term. The project initially had an 18-month duration up to January 2022 (Phase I) and

Slide presentation of the webinar held on 2 May 2023. 

This study looks at the current (2020-2022) alignment and links between social protection programs on the one hand and humanitarian assistance provided by donors and agencies on the other in six countries in the Sahel region: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.

This webinar aimed to bring diverse experiences together to discuss how the risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities of women and girls are different or heightened in crisis contexts, and what this means for social protection design and implementation. In particular, this webinar explored the roles of different actors in supporting social protection systems and programmes to respond to women’s and girls’ needs, including government, development partners, and civil society. 

The focus of this report is to present the situation of workers in agrifood systems in West Africa, the main challenges and vulnerabilities they face, and how social protection in these countries attempts or manages to respond to them, both through contributory social insurance mechanisms and non-contributory social assistance responses. 

In 2018, WFP conducted a multi-country study that demonstrated that interventions – programmes, projects, operations etc. – using cash-based transfers (CBTs) as an assistance modality can promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. The countries in which case studies were conducted were Bangladesh, Egypt, El Salvador, Jordan, Mali and Rwanda.