Overview

Natural resource management (NRM) strategies that produce desirable biophysi- cal results and promise region-wide economic growth and development are most likely to be sustainable in the long run. A number of biophysical interven- tions have been evaluated and identified as potentially important for individual actors within the agro-pastoral systems of Northern Mali, providing both biophysical and economic improvements. The growth and development implications of these interventions for the region’s economic sectors are less well understood. To the extent that income-improving interven- tions in one sector produce different long- term impacts on other sectors, sector-level NRM strategies may be better prioritized to maximize growth and development and thereby serve to minimize income and food-security related conflicts. To assess the differential impacts, this research uses the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology to develop production and income multipliers for the targeted community within the arid Northern Mali region (Madiama). The linkages and growth consequences for four socioeco- nomic institutions (farmers, agropastoralists, sedentary pastoralists, transhumant pastoralists) have been examined. Intensive income and expendi- ture surveys and secondary data collection within the targeted community have provided the data necessary to develop the accounting matrix framework.