MERCY CORPS Breakwater 2020-2024: Conflict prevention and reconciliation in Mali

The international non governmental organisation Mercy Corps, together with International Alert and Humanity & Inclusion, has applied to the Embassy of Sweden in Bamako for funding of 79 MSEK to carry out the program "Bolstering Rural Economies and Knowledge of Workable Actions to Enable Reconciliation in Central and Southern Mali" (BREAKWATER) during 2020-2023. Mercy Corps will be the Embassy's agreement partner having the overall program responsibility. The program will, in an inception phase during the first half year of implementation, undertake several studies to guide the final design of the program. Mercy Corps is a new partner to Sweden in Mali, wherefore the Embassy plans to commission an external review of Mercy Corp´s financial management and internal control at Mercy Corp and International Alert´s local Mali offices. The approval of the review, and/or Mercy Corp's management plan in relation to recommendations made by the review, is a condition in the agremeent to be fulfilled before the second planned disbursement to the program can be made. The program generally aims at improving the human security in the buffer zone communities of Segou, Koulikoro and Mopti regions, reaching over 60. 000 beneficiaries and dependents across approx. 130 selected communities. The program has three components which together aim to prevent the further spread of violent conflict in Central and Southern Mali. It will do so by addressing contemporary and historical root causes of conflict in the selected communities situated on the frontier between the relatively stable South and the most volatile parts of the Centre of Mali. The three main expected outcomes of the program are: Outcome 1: Improved local capacities to effectively manage inter/intra- community relational drivers of human insecurity. Outcome 2: Improved individual, household and community capacity to offset economic and environmental drivers of human insecurity. Outcome 3: Improved relations between citizens and the state to overcome governance-related drivers of human insecurity. The BREAKWATER program aims to mitigate conflicts which rise to the surface through local systems wherever possible. The programme will work to overcome natural resource management challenges, the breakdown of inter-ethnic relations and traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution, economic drivers of conflict and a broken social contract between citizens and the state. It is targeted at pastoral, farming, fishery and mixed communities, in target locations that have not yet been substantially affected by violence.