A fresh round of funding, same unanswered questions
On Monday, October 12, Mali’s Minister of Malians Abroad and African Integration, Mossa Ag Attaher, presided over a ceremony to hand out financing to 90 socio-economic reintegration projects for returning migrants. The total envelope announced was 121 million CFA francs, averaging between 1 and 2 million per project. Out of 206 applications, only 90 were selected. The state is funding the entire operation through the Special Investment Budget. The sectors highlighted are familiar: livestock, market gardening, agriculture, trade, crafts, and services. Beneficiaries are spread across Bamako and a handful of localities including Gao, Timbuktu, Nioro, Kita, and San.
On paper, the announcement looks clean, national, and sovereign. It fits neatly into the current rhetoric of valorizing the diaspora and turning return into opportunity. The minister called for “rigor,” “exemplary management,” and promised “territorial follow-up.” He even mentioned special attention to deportees from Saudi Arabia, who often fall outside the radar of the International Organization for Migration.
Yet behind the round numbers and the oversized check photos, several gray areas persist and invite scrutiny.
An opaque selection process
No public criteria grid was ever released. It remains unclear on what basis the 90 files were chosen from the 206 submitted. Who sat on the selection committee? What factors were prioritized: actual economic viability, level of vulnerability, how long ago the return happened, the presence of a serious business plan, or other considerations less openly acknowledged? Previous editions (75 projects for 100 million in 2025, 40 projects led by civil society organizations in 2024) also never came with detailed criteria published. The opacity of the process leaves open the possibility of favoritism, clientelism, or selection by network rather than by merit and potential impact.
No names, no details
The list of the 90 beneficiaries has not been made public. Neither have the exact amounts allocated to each, nor the precise nature of the projects selected. In a country where trust in the management of public funds remains fragile, this lack of transparency is problematic. How can anyone verify that the money actually reaches the intended recipients and doesn’t dilute along the way? How can anyone ensure that relatives, political activists, or intermediaries aren’t capturing part of the envelope?
Monitoring promised, never demonstrated
The minister promises “territorial follow-up” to guarantee the sustainability of the activities. Yet no public evaluation of previous editions has ever been released. How many projects from 2024 and 2025 are still running today? How many actually generate stable income and create jobs? How many simply vanished after the grant ran out? Without performance indicators, independent audits, and published results, the mechanism looks more like a series of one-off operations than an evaluable public policy.
The scale of the problem
Since 2022, the MPRR-SSA program alone (financed mainly by the European Union and implemented with IOM) has facilitated the return of more than 27,800 Malians and supported over 14,000 reintegration projects. Against those volumes, 90 projects for 121 million CFA francs look like a drop in the ocean. The national effort is real, but it remains symbolic. And that is precisely where the risk of a gap between communication and reality is greatest: presenting a limited operation as a “concrete commitment” and a “lever for local development” can create an illusion of massive action when the vast majority of returning migrants remain without structured support.
What is not being said
The program is financed through the Special Investment Budget. In a tight budgetary context, it is unclear exactly where the 121 million comes from, or whether it comes at the expense of other priorities. It is also unknown whether beneficiaries are only recent returnees or include people who came back years ago. Finally, nothing indicates how the mechanism articulates (or fails to articulate) with existing IOM and technical partner mechanisms, which can lead to duplication or, conversely, gaps in coverage.
Legitimate intentions, but accountability is missing
The stated intention—helping compatriots rebuild an economic activity after an often traumatic migration journey—is legitimate. But a public policy worthy of the name is judged by its transparency, traceability, and measurable results. For now, the mechanism remains largely a black box: applications received, projects selected, funds disbursed… and silence on what happens next.
As long as the list of beneficiaries, the selection criteria, and the impact assessments from previous years are not made public, doubt will remain permissible. And in a field as sensitive as the reintegration of returning migrants, doubt is never neutral.
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