Situated in Western Africa, e-Mali is a vast, landlocked nation that faces unique challenges and opportunities in its digital transformation journey. According to the latest UN e-government survey from 2022, Mali falls within the middle EGDI group, indicating moderate progress in its e-government development. Additionally, it registers as having Middle OSI (Online Service Index) and Medium TII (Telecommunication Infrastructure), suggesting a reasonable level of digital infrastructure, although there’s room for improvement.
However, one standout aspect is Mali’s very Low HCI (Human Capital Index), highlighting a challenge in terms of human resources and skills development in the digital domain. This indicates a need for investment in education and training to enhance the country’s digital capabilities.
Despite these challenges, there’s cause for optimism. Mali has shown progress in its e-government and e-participation rankings over the past two years. Moving up 3 places in e-government ranking and a significant leap of 27 places in e-participation ranking is indeed noteworthy. In 2022, Mali ranked 168th in e-government and 128th in e-participation, reflecting a positive trajectory towards greater digital engagement and inclusivity.
e-Mali and its pharmaceutical online registry
Looking at Mali’s healthcare challenges, urgent action was needed to address the lengthy process (up to 18 months) of importing and distributing vital medical supplies.
To tackle this pressing problem, in 2023 Mali announced its collaboration with UNCTAD, the country’s health ministry, and the national pharmaceutical association to develop a new online pharmaceutical registry. This initiative aims to streamline the supply chain process, reduce delays, and enhance accessibility to vital medications.
The announcement of Mali’s medical and pharmaceutical online registry at the World Investment Forum in Abu Dhabi in October 2023 is a significant milestone.
Through the implementation of the online registry, Mali’s pharmaceutical importers, producers, distributors, and the government will have a centralized platform to monitor and manage supply chain processes more effectively. This not only helps to address delays but also enables the identification and mitigation of fraud, ensuring that medications reach those who need them most.
What I’d like to add is that while the development of the online registry is a significant step forward, its success will depend on effective implementation and ongoing collaboration between stakeholders. Additionally…efforts should be made to ensure accessibility and usability of the platform, especially for healthcare providers in remote areas.
Connectivity issues persist
At the start of 2024, Mali had 7.82 million internet users, representing a 33.1% internet penetration rate. While this shows a very, very slight increase from the 33% estimated in 2022(according to ITU), it’s clear that connectivity issues persist, with a significant portion of the population—66.9%—still offline.
One positive aspect is the widespread use of cellular mobile connections, with 96.4% of the population having access to mobile services. However, this doesn’t fully bridge the digital divide, as internet access remains limited for many. In this front, Mali has made commendable efforts to build its ICT infrastructure, including laying over 3,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable. The government’s commitment to invest $117.3bn in improving the fiber optic network is a great step forward (even though not enough in this case.)
Why? Because with approximately 15.83 million people still offline, there’s a pressing need to bridge this digital divide.
However,… political instability and conflict pose significant obstacles to further investment and infrastructure development. Violence not only disrupts the construction of new connections but also drives up deployment costs, making it challenging for both mobile network operators and the government to expand coverage effectively.
Nevertheless, there’s optimism in the collaboration between public authorities and initiatives aimed at rural electrification and ICT expansion. By pooling resources and efforts, there’s potential to overcome some of the challenges facing Mali’s connectivity landscape.
No central policy to guide the digitization of government services
Looking at Mali’s approach to digitizing government services, I believe there’s a clear gap when it comes to policy guidance.
Mali’s digital transformation agenda has been anchored by Mali Numerique 2020, a framework adopted in 2014 with the ambitious goal of transforming e-Mali into a West African tech hub by 2020. However, despite its initial promise, the digital agenda has since expired without achieving its intended objectives.
It outlined six objectives, the policies and administrative developments that followed fell short of translating these aspirations into actionable goals. This lack of clear direction has hindered progress in digitizing government services, leaving them predominantly informative and analogue in nature.
Final thoughts
Most public sector websites in e-Mali offer static information, with limited opportunities for two-way communication or direct user interaction. Unfortunately, this basic level of digitalization has seen little progress over the past years.
Moving forward, I think Mali would benefit greatly from developing and implementing a new digital transformation strategy that addresses current challenges and aligns with the country’s long-term goals.
Sources:
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/DDD/ddd_MLI.pdf
https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data/Country-Information/id/105-Mali https://worldinvestmentforum.unctad.org/
