User:IVX8O8XVI/mali

Canada–Mali relations concern the bilateral relationship between the countries of Canada and the Republic of Mali. Relations have been characterized in 2009 as "excellent" and "becoming more extensive" by the Government of Canada. President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali viewed the relationship in 2009 as one of "co-operation and friendship". Owing to the Canadian government's policies on tied aid, approximately two-thirds of the one billion dollars (constant 2007 US $) that Canada has provided in bilateral official development assistance to Mali over the period 1960–2007 has returned to the Canadian private sector in the form of procurement contracts, chiefly in technical consulting, telecommunications, hydroelectricity, and railways. Canada's contribution represented 7% of Mali's total country-to-country aid receipts of $14.0 bn. over this period, ranking it fifth-largest after France, Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands. More than 99% of Canada-to-Mali aid disbursements have been in the form of grants, with concessional loans comprising $7.1m. (0.8%). Canada has also channeled aid indirectly to Mali via multilateral institutions including the World Bank and agencies of the United Nations, and this is estimated at $355m. (constant 2007 US $) over 1975–2007, or 5% of Mali's total multilateral aid receipts of $7.2bn. over the same period. In 2009, Mali was among twenty developing nations designated to benefit from a focusing of 80% of Canada's development aid budget. Canadian imports of cotton from Mali peaked at Cdn.$20m. in 1999, but have ceased entirely since 2005; Canada had an overall trade balance with Mali of Cdn.$22m. during the period 1990–2008. Canada averaged Mali's 19th-most important import partner during 1983–2004, but fell out of the top 25 during 2005–2007, and has not figured among Mali's top 25 export recipients with the exception of years 1987–1989, when Canada ranked between 7th and 22nd. Canadian mining investment in Mali in 2009 was estimated by the Canadian government at Cdn.$500m. and grew from four Canadian-owned mining properties in Mali in 1991 to 73 in 2005. From 1996 to 2007, approximately US$267m., or 3% of Mali's total revenue from industrial gold production, went to the Canadian company IAMGOLD Corporation   and its investors, including both of Canada's public pension funds. The two mines part-owned by IAMGOLD yielded half of Mali's gold output over this period. According to IAMGOLD's South African co-partner in these mines, AngloGold Ashanti, 40% of earnings went into the Malian economy through various government revenues, workers' salaries, Malian sub-contractors and local community development initiatives. As Mali's gold mines were estimated to contribute 8% of the gross domestic product in 2007, IAMGOLD's mines comprised about 3–4% of Mali's economy. Sixty percent of these mines' revenue went to foreign stakeholders, including IAMGOLD, AngloGold Ashanti and its sub-contractors, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, and European creditors. In 2006, for every 100,000 of the Canadian population, 2.7 persons were born in Mali. By comparison, France, Mali's former colonizer, reported in 2006 having 69.6 officially registered Malians per 100,000 of its population.

History
Formal diplomatic ties between Mali and Canada were signaled by the openings of Mali's embassy in Ottawa in 1978, and Canada's embassy in Bamako in 1995. Mali has been a recipient of Canadian development aid since 1972, according to the Canadian embassy website. Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development state that Canada has contributed official development assistance to Mali steadily since 1962, just three years after Mali's independence from France. Expressed in constant 2007 US dollars, Canada disbursed a net total of $936 million in bilateral aid between 1960 and 2007, making Canada responsible for 4.0% of Mali's total bilateral and multilateral aid receipts of $23.5 billion over this period, and ranking it as Mali's fifth-largest bilateral donor after France (16.5% of Mali's ODA), the Netherlands (9.4%), the United States (7.6%) and Germany (5.2%). Only US$7.1m. of Canadian aid was in the form of loans, all being made during the 1970s; Canada's loans to Mali represented 0.41% of the total of US$1.75bn. (2007$) made by all donors. Canada has also contributed aid to Mali via multilateral institutions, which collectively were responsible for 39.8% of Malian aid receipts since 1960; for the period from 1975 to 2007, Canada provided US$355m., or 4.9% of Mali's $7.2bn. in multilateral aid.

Canada's involvement from 1977–1996 in Senegal's and Mali's rail transport sectors via CANAC Consultants Ltd. and CANARAIL was described in a 1999 review by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as aiming "to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of railway operations in Mali. Unfortunately, none of the projects fulfilled this mission, primarily due to external circumstances beyond their control[...]"; CIDA nevertheless concluded that "Canada has made a significant contribution to the survival of Mali's railways [and has] achieved significant outputs and notable social and economic effects"; the outputs included the supply of one hundred rail cars, nine locomotives and five ktonnes of rail track and parts, all fabricated in Canada, at an investment of Cdn.$38.8m. According to a United Nations 2006 investment guide for Mali, the Quebec consulting firm CanaRail was assigned a 30-year lease to modernise Mali's state railroad RCFM (Régie du Chemin de Fer du Mali), and Transrail SA, was ranked as Mali's third-largest planned foreign investment (CFA 19.7 bn, US $37 m.) during 2001–2005. In 2003, the former Canadian National Railway rail consultancy subsidiary Canac and France's Getma received a 25-year lease of the Senegalese-Malian railway, acquiring a 51% ownership of the Transrail public-private partnership, to which the governments of Senegal and Mali each retained 10% shares, private investors held 10% and the employees held 9%; the Transrail consortium received $132m. in loans from the World Bank International Development Association, the African Development Bank, and other lenders. Canac-Getma terminated or early-pensioned 632 employees and focused on freight instead of passenger operations. Canac was acquired in 2004 by the American firm Savage Companies, and Savage sold its Transrail shares to Belgium's Vecturis in 2007. CIDA's contribution to CANAC has come under criticism, including from the group Le Collectif Citoyen pour la Restitution et le Développement Intégré du Rail, which described the consequences of the rationalization process as "disastrous"; passenger traffic was reduced with the closure of 26 of 36 stations, to focus on the rapid export of cotton to the Dakar coast. Canadian Rick Antonson reported in a 2004 Mali travelogue that the Dakar-Bamako passenger train service was highly sporadic, operating less than once per week. In a 2007 review of its Mali programming, the World Bank noted that "the quality of [rail] service did not improve as anticipated. International goods traffic has remained stagnant; the lengths of track where trains can only move extremely slowly still total some 230 kilometers, compared to the target of 30 kilometers; the level of investments remains far too low. The concession is politically unpopular in Mali and there is a significant danger that unless outstanding issues can be quickly addressed—investment policies, continuation of passenger service—the privatization may be in danger". According to the Malian citizens' collective, Cocidirail, a Transrail audit revealed a deficit over 2003–2006 of $20m., and the Senegalese and Malian ministries of transport jointly declared in 2008 that Transrail had failed to run the railway more efficiently than the state-owned services. Ottawa-based transportation consulting firm CPCS Transcom also participated in the Mali-Senegal Railway privatization project, and was a member of the railway concessioning group that received a World Bank President's Award for Excellence in 1999.

In the telecommunications sector, during 1975–1994, CIDA supported the Programme panafricain de télécommunications (PANAFTEL) infrastructure project (Cdn.$170m.) in five West African countries including Mali, and Canadian private sector partners included Bell Canada International, CANAC, and SEGIBEL (a consortium of BCI and SEGITEL). Canada's International Development Research Centre has had at least eighty technical projects in Mali since 1971, including support for community telecentres in Bamako and Timbuktu between 1998 and 2009, to enhance public access to computers and the Internet.

Canada has been active in the development of Mali's energy infrastructure since the mid-1970s, with C$23m. invested up to 1999, according to CIDA. CIDA-funded projects in this sector included the Sélingué Dam Energy Transmission Line (1976–1980), the Bamako Electricity Sector Strengthening (1991–2000), and the Bamako-Ségou Very High Tension Connector Line project (1976–1980). The latter project's purpose was to bring hydroelectric power to the city of Ségou and environs via the construction of a 280-km. connector line and hydro poles from Bamako. At a cost of C$9.1m., CIDA concluded that "project has gone beyond achieving its purpose", by furnishing "Canadian materials [that] were judged to be adequate and very well suited to the climatic regions", through the training of four Malian managers, and by benefiting five Canadian firms, including Hydro-Québec International, through a total of C$7.7m. in supply contracts. Concerning a $6.3m. Malian hydroelectric project awarded in 1997 by CIDA, the Office of the Auditor-General of Canada identified "serious problems in the selection of the winning company", finding that CIDA "failed to show due diligence" in response to complaints from competing bidders, and that it failed to disqualify one bidder despite its lacking the minimum relevant experience. Laval, Quebec-based Transelec /Common inc was identified as the $6.3m. CIDA contract beneficiary, and it installed a 150 kV, 130 km line in Mali. For its construction of 500 km. of high-tension hydro lines in Mali that "will be able to significantly improve [Malians'] quality of life", the Quebec City engineering firm of Lambert Somec was awarded one of nine Canadian Awards for International Cooperation by the Minister of International Cooperation, the Honourable Susan Whelan in 2003; CANAC Incorporated was also among the award recipients that year.

During the 1980s and 1990s, CIDA supported the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) (Senegal River development organization) and Manantali Dam projects in Mali for agricultural irrigation and hydroelectric power generation. Two Canadian public interest groups, the Halifax Initiative and Probe International cited CIDA documents which reported that CIDA had contributed at least Cdn.$76m. to Manantali-related projects, including, in addition to Hydro-Québec, supply contracts in 1993 to Dessau Associates and SNC-Shawinigan for consulting work, to Sulzer Canada in 1998 for turbines, and to Tecsult International for turbine installation. The Manantali Dam disrupted "ten centuries" of recession agriculture, in which farmers planted on the Senegal River floodplain after the rainy season, and this led to numerous problems, including reduced food production, "disease for humans and livestock, loss of recession agriculture, loss of pasturage for livestock, and loss of acacia forests – [which] had devastating human consequences. Additionally, the economic costs may not be outweighed by the benefits provided from the development of river resources[...]"; hydroelectric power was first delivered from Manantali to the Malian capital of Bamako in 2002.

The Canadian International Development Agency supported two projects in Mali with Développement international Desjardins, the international development arm of the Quebec-based cooperative union, Desjardins Group. From 1997–2007, the Support Project for Urban Housing (Cdn.$5.0m.) sought to increase home ownership among low-income families in Bamako by guaranteeing mortgages that were financed by the Government of Mali and private players. In 2000, Canada's Auditor-General cited anomalies in the administration of this project, including failure to award the partner contract via a competitive process, bureaucratic delays leading to none of the scheduled 1,400 guarantees being issued during the first year, and failure of the Government of Mali to contribute its agreed-upon share. The Cdn.$7.3m. Nyèsigiso Network Support Project – Phase II (1998–2008) was aimed at poverty reduction through the provision of secure savings and credit services in the city of Ségou to clients including farmers and small entrepreneurs, 30% of whom were women.

Mark Nathanson, a Canadian-born businessman, has been credited with the discovery a major gold deposit at Sadiola in western Mali in 1988. This find led to the development of the Toronto-based company IAMGOLD Corporation (previously AGEM), and its joint venture with Malian, South African, and World Bank partners to establish the SEMOS (Société d’Exploitation des Mines d’Or de Sadiola S. A.) consortium. Sadiola and the nearby Yatela mine, under similar ownership, have been responsible for one-half of Mali's industrially-mined gold production over the period 1996–2007.

Following IAMGOLD's Sadiola discovery, Canada's Barrick Gold acquired three properties in Mali, and conducted testing there during 1995–1997. In 1998, Barrick formed a joint venture with South Africa's AngloGold, providing AngloGold management control over Barrick's properties in Mali. Toronto-based junior mining company Etruscan Resources acquired Barrick's Djelimangara property in Mali in 2001. In 2007, Canadian junior mining company Goldbelt Resources Ltd. acquired Barrick's remaining two properties in southern Mali, and Goldbelt was acquired by Norway's Wega Mining ASA in 2008. A map of mining titles in southern Mali, dated June 2008 and published on the Government of Mali's mining ministry website labels one property as belonging to Barrick Exploration.

While Canada-to-Mali extractive sector investment is concentrated in Toronto and Vancouver-based companies, firms headquartered in the Canadian province of Quebec command investments in most other sectors. However, the province of New Brunswick has enjoyed a unique and close relationship with Mali. In 2003, Mabo Touré, the daughter of the President of the Republic of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, completed a course of study at the University of Moncton; as of 2005, 35 students from Mali were enroled at this institution. A three-year co-operation agreement signed in 2005 between the governments of Mali and New Brunswick was renewed for another five years in 2008, and in 2008, Malian President Touré was conferred an honourary doctorate degree by the Université de Moncton. The Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick received the distinction of "chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mali" in 2005, in recognition of its collaboration since 1991 with the Institut Universitaire de Gestion de Bamako, au Mali. The University of Moncton graduated five students from Mali in the spring of 2009.

Canada and Mali have established at least two community twinning relationships. In a striking reversal of humanitarian flows, the citizens of the Malian village of Sanankoroba (situated 30 km south of Bamako) raised one hundred dollars as emergency relief to benefit their sister community of Sainte-Élisabeth, Quebec, which had been affected by the North American ice storm of 1998. The Sanankoroba – Ste-Élisabeth twinning was established in 1985 via contacts with Canada World Youth and SUCO (Solidarité Union Coopération) and continues in the areas of exchange visits and technical support. SUCO, which has been active in Mali since 1967, was contracted by CIDA in 1997–2001 and extended from 2002–2009 to execute similar development projects in sixty villages, as part of CIDA's long-standing theme of decentralization of Malian government services. In 1999, Roméo Leblanc was the first Governor General of Canada to make a state visit to Mali, during which he toured Sanankoroba, in the company of the Malian President. In 2008, the Canadian city of Moncton, New Brunswick partnered with the Commune of Kaladougou in southwestern Mali, with the intent of a "knowledge sharing partnership regarding communications".

In 2004, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, then Canada's Minister of Finance met with parliamentarians and civil society groups in Mali, and in 2005, in concert with other nations in the G8 group, he agreed to cancel 100% of the debt of 18 heavily-indebted low-income countries, including that of Mali. About $2 billion of Mali's foreign debt was written off, such that the total government debt declined from 49% of the Malian gross domestic product in 2005 to 20% in 2006. Annual external debt service payments fell from 3.1% of GDP in 1987 and 3.0% in 1997 to 1.3% in 2006.

Indicative of the strengthening commercial ties between Canada and Mali, the Canadian government established a Trade Commissioner Service with the Canadian Embassy in Bamako in 2005. The Mali Embassy has set up five "honorary Mali consulates" in five of Canada's provinces.

Comparative social indicators
Since 1990, when the United Nations Development Programme first published its annual Human Development Index for 160 or more countries of the world, Canada and Mali have continuously occupied the extreme opposite ends of the human development spectrum, ranking among the top five and bottom five countries, respectively. The development gap between these two countries steadily narrowed by 5% points between 2000 and 2006: Mali's Human Development Index value improved at the fourth-fastest rate between 2000 and 2006, for the 138 countries where these data are extant. While in 2000, Mali's HDI value of 0.343 was 35.1% of that for Canada (0.950), by 2006, the Malian HDI, 0.390, was 40.4% of Canada's (0.970).

In 1990, the average life expectancy at birth of Malians was 45.0 years, or 69% of the world average of 65.5, an improvement over 1980 when it was 65% of the average (34.8 years vs. 53.4 years). In 2005, the Malian life expectancy rose further to 53.1 years, 78% of the world average. The Canadian International Development Agency notes that Mali's GDP per capita increased from US$220 in 2000 to US$380 in 2005. However, relative to world averages, Malians have experienced regression both in terms of purchasing power parity incomes, and in adult literacy rates. In 1960, when corrected for international price differences (US PPP $), the Malian GDP per capita was 22.6% of the world average ($400 vs. $1,770), and in 1988 it was 11.5% of the world average ($500 vs. $4,340). By comparison, in 2005, Mali's GDP per capita was $1,033, or 10.8% of the world average of $9,543. The adult literacy rate in Mali was estimated at 23% in 1985 (world average: 76.4%) and 24.0% for 1995–2005 (world average: 82.4%). Between 1950 and 2050, the United Nations predicts that Mali's population growth rate is peaking between 2000 and 2015 at 3.0% per year.

Development co-operation
CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, reported disbursing $326m. to Mali from 1996/97 to 2005/06 (nominal Canadian dollars), of which 26% was allocated to governance-related programming, followed by education (24%), health, population and fertility (17%), energy (7%), and agriculture (6%). In 2009, over thirty per cent of Canadian development support to Mali was targeted to education and 20% to health. The precise fractions of Canada-to-Mali aid stipulated for the procurement of Canadian goods and services have not been reported. Canada's overall proportion of tied aid has declined steadily since the 1950s and 1960s, when it exceeded 80%; in the early 1990s, CIDA internal analysis found that 68–69% of disbursements for sub-Saharan Africa went to Canadian-sourced purchases, well above the 50% lower bound established at that time. In conformance with a Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness target, Canada's Minister of International Cooperation announced in 2008 that by fiscal year 2012–2013, the Government of Canada will entirely untie its international development aid. Over the 1962–2007 period, given that Canada-Mali aid was tied at 80% until 1990, at 70% from 1991–2000, and at the declining rates reported to OECD in the following table, it can be estimated that of the total US$936m. (2007 dollars) provided, approximately 66%, or $616m., has re-entered the Canadian economy through Mali's purchases of products and services from Canadian businesses and non-profit organisations.

In a 2007 internal evaluation of its programming in Mali, CIDA identified a number of unique strengths that Canada has demonstrated. These include developing Mali's public finance management system via the $20m. PAMORI project from 1997 to 2002, which helped enable the Malian tax directorate to increase internal revenues as a share of the national budget from 61.2% in 1996 to 72.2% in 2005; an increase in assisted births in northern Mali, where Canada's health programming was focused, from 40% in 2001 to 53% in 2006; and the intention of the Malian government to adopt a Canadian marketing model for its Projet d'appui aux filières agricoles (PAFA). Numerous cultural impediments to CIDA's efforts are also discussed, including "deficiencies in the management of the civil service, the slowness of governmental reforms, a culture of impunity, weaknesses in the execution of budgets [...] the lack of participation of civil society", "[t]he slowness of decentralization is a major preoccupation of Canadian support" and "the GoM [Government of Mali] still tends to intervene in the private sector, with consequences that are not always conducive to growth. The reforms that would create a favourable environment for private sector development are far from completed" (CIDA 2007: 6–9). In 2004, Canada was one of the few donors to have remained involved in the reform of Mali's judicial system (PRODEJ), and CIDA's 2007 evaluation underlines the challenges: "[j]udicial reform in Mali is at a standstill for several reasons, primarily the lack of political will and ownership" (2007: 19). Similar challenges face efforts towards civil service reforms, according to CIDA: "[a]ll the goodwill displayed by the GoM toward reform cannot hide the fact that grave problems in civil service management are a major handicap for the implementation of those reforms, indeed in some cases dooming them to failure" (CIDA 2007: 29). At the Canadian International Trade Tribunal in 2003, CIDA's awarding of the PRODEJ contract ($6.95m, 2003–2010) was the subject of a complaint filed by the Consortium Genivar – M3E – Université d'Ottawa; the Tribunal determined in favour of the Consortium, and the contract was awarded to them. The contribution of Ottawa-based engineering firm Genivar included the building of a court house in Bamako.

A research team from Canada's Université de Montréal and Mali's Regional Health Authority in Kayes evaluated a CIDA-supported maternity referral system in six districts of Kayes Region and found that, over 2002–2005, the rate of peri-natal maternal mortality was halved from 10.1% of cases observed to 5.1%, as the frequency of Caesarian section operations (through the training of general practitioners) tripled; they concluded that "such programs can be implemented on a large scale without major external funding".

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has profiled one CIDA-funded human rights initiative for Mali's Dogon people.

Reflecting a trend towards closer alignment and complementarity between the international donor community and recipient countries' ownership of development strategies, Canadian aid to Mali has been compared with other donors according to indicators established in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. In 2007, Canada performed better than the donor average in terms of the share of Canadian aid reported in Mali's national budget, the share of Canadian technical co-operation aligned with Mali's programming, aid passing through Mali's procurement system, aid aligned to Malian programme-based approaches, and joint missions with other donors. However, Canada scored below average on its share of public sector aid that employed Malian public financial management systems, the number of implementations running parallel and independently of Malian agencies, the ratio of scheduled aid actually disbursed by the Malian government, and the proportion of projects jointly analysed with its partner donors.

Canadian-based non-governmental organizations have been carrying out development projects in Mali since the 1960s. The umbrella group Canadian Council for International Co-operation lists 18 Canadian NGOs in Mali, including the Aga Khan Foundation, Canadian Crossroads International, Canadian Center for International Studies and Cooperation, Canadian Red Cross, Cardinal Léger et ses Oeuvres, CARE Canada, Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, Plan Canada, Steelworkers Humanity Fund, USC Canada, and World Vision Canada. CIDA's partnerships with not-for-profits also include the Quebec City-based Groupe Consultations CCISD (Center for International Cooperation in Health and Development) and Ste-Foy, Québec's MIR Partenariats et développement international (2005–2010, $7.3m., Paramedic Training Support). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has profiled a journalists' training project sponsored by Farm Radio in southern Mali. In addition to donations and other private fundraising revenues, from fiscal years 1998–99 to 2006–07, these not-for-profit development NGOs collectively benefitted from CIDA grants of between Cdn$0.34m. and $7.23m. per year, an annual average of 8.4% of Canada's total aid package to Mali. Through its Seeds of Survival program, USC Canada reports that it has been collaborating with communities in Mali since 1989, promoting seed banks and increased crop diversity through drought-resistant varieties. Between 2003 and 2009, Save the Children Canada received a Cdn.$5m. grant from CIDA in support of their work against the trafficking of children from Mali and Burkina Faso who are sent to Côte d'Ivoire as agricultural labourers.

Commodities
Canada's exports to Mali ranked it Mali's 16th-most important trading partner in 1997, declining to 21st in 2004, and below 25th during 2005–2007; Canada's imports from Mali have not ranked it among Mali's top 25 partners except for the years 1987–1989. Over the period 1990–2008, Canada's product exports to Mali, $112m. (current US$) comprised 0.5% of Canada's total exports to Africa, while exports to all Africa countries, $22.0bn., were 0.5% of total Canadian exports; Canadian imports from Mali were 0.4% of Africa-to-Canada total, and African imports were 1.1% of the global-to-Canada total. Most Canadian exports to Mali enter duty-free, as the Government of Mali's Mining Code permits foreign mining companies to "pay no corporate tax for the first five years and import equipment duty-free throughout exploration and for three years of exploitation. After five years, there is a 35% tax, but that is reduced when profits are reinvested in Mali". During 2003–2008, the Canadian Bank Note Company exported an average of Cdn$1m. per year in "fiscal stamps" to Mali, used as tax registration decals for display on all Malian road vehicles; mineral exploration equipment and tax decals also dominate Canada's exports with neighbouring country Burkina Faso. Public disclosure documents from CIDA record contracts under the "Common Development Funds" project for the Canadian Bank Note Company of $1,059,966 (20-12-2006), 73% disbursed, and $1,060,266 (02-01-2007), 0% disbursed. An average of US$0.3 million annually between 2001 and 2007 was shipped from Canada to Mali in previously worn articles of clothing. In both 2007 and 2008, through CIDA's Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, oral contraceptives valued at $0.2 m. were supplied to women in Mali's Dogon region. Canada has gone from importing, at its peak in 1999, 6.7% of Mali's total raw cotton exports (US$14m. out $210m.), to 0% from 2005 onward. Canada's global imports of raw cotton have also fallen by over 90%, from US$76m. in 1999 to $7m. in 2008, and in the latter year, 98.5% of it was imported from the United States. Mali was the seventh-largest cotton-exporting nation in 1999, and it has fallen from seventh to tenth position from 2003 to 2007. In their 2005/06 study tour of seven African nations to assess Canada's foreign policy record on that continent, Canadian Senators Hugh Segal and Peter A. Stollery "heard in Mali that there was little will on the part of certain developed countries to make a trade deal on cotton. Standing in a cotton field in that country, Malian farmers passionately described the U.S. actions [of domestic protectionism] as 'sabotage' in that they were causing an increase in poverty instead of the desired poverty reduction that the U.S. government has been publicly calling for"; the Canadian senators concluded that "[i]n Mali, the greatest demand that was made of us was not more aid, but rather a fair world trading system where cotton farmers could export their competitive products".

Canadian international commodity trade patterns since 1990 can be characterized by aggregating product import and export volumes for the top 25 harmonized system codes for individual years in the Trade Data Online search interface to Statistics Canada data provided by Industry Canada. Compared to the previous decade, the profile of Canadian exports to Mali has altered in the 2000s, with mining equipment and printed matter more than doubling their combined shares, from 17% during 1990–1999 to 37% from 2000–2008. Printed matter comprises essentially tax decals and passports supplied to the Malian government via the Canadian Bank Note Company. Hydroelectric energy-related exports (hydro poles, hydraulic turbines) were limited to the years 1997–2001. Because some product codes, particularly mechanical and electrical devices, are generic in nature and potentially employed by several sectors including mining, railways, or telecommunications, the aggregates in the following table are underreported to some extent.

Services
For its development projects in Mali between 2000 and 2007, the World Bank awarded technical consultancy and infrastructure contracts totalling U$12.7m. to a number of Canadian businesses, including GID Canada (consultancy, agricultural services), Geomar /Setade (consultancy, agricultural supply chains), PA Services Conseils (consultancy, funds management for rural electrification), Rail & Traction Canada Inc. (equipment for Transrail railways project), Romic Marc Rail Inc. (equipment for Transrail railways project), SNC Lavalin (rural infrastructure), Tecsult-Biman, as well as not-for-profit groups including SOCODEVI and CECI. Drummondville, Quebec-based engineering consultants Experco International received a $101k contract in 2004 for livestock management in Mali's Niger region, and also carried out land management work in Mali in the early 1990s. In 2005, Experco's manager in Mali, Marcel Yvon, was the sole Canadian among five expatriates granted Malian citizenship by the Government of Mali's Council of Ministers. The Government of Canada contributed a total of US$31.8m. to international financial institutions and regional development banks in support of programming in Mali from FY1999-2000 to FY 2006–2007.

CIDA's Mali-related contracts involving Canadian business partnerships have included CRC Sogema (tax and educational reform, five contracts valued at Cdn.$72.6m, 1997–2009), SNC Lavalin (agricultural development, tax reform, two contracts, $34m., 1997–2015), Geomar Inc. and Fédération des Agriculteurs et Agricultrices Francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick (joint with SNC Lavalin). Since 1986, Quebec-based CRC Sogema has, through African Development Bank, CIDA and World Bank funding, been involved in numerous projects including the reform of Mali's taxation system, the decentralisation of educational services, and banking reform. In 2006 at the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, a contract awarded by CIDA to the latter three organisations was contested on the grounds of unfair treatment by the Centre canadien d'étude et de coopération internationale, the Société de coopération pour le développement international and L'Union des producteurs agricoles—Développement international, who were competing bidders in partnership with Tecsult Inc.; the Tribunal dismissed the case, citing a lack of jurisdictional authority. CIDA's Mali contracts also include the Canadian firms Edinova Editeur Conseil (textbook support), Rail & Traction Canada Inc. (support to Common Funds Development), Services Techniques DHG Ltée (support to Common Funds Development), and Tecsult Eduplus Inc. (continuing education for teachers).

Non-extractive sectors
In 2005, the Quebec-based firm Seaquest-Infotel signed a CFA 2.9 bn. (US $5.3m.) contract with Mali's national telephone service, SOTELMA, to provide a fibre-optic network for the city of Bamako. The contract was reportedly ended unilaterally by SOTELMA in 2007. Canadian shipments of telecommunications-related products to Mali totalled US$4.5m. between 2000 and 2006; this includes $1.7m in optical fibre cables (harmonized system HS code 900110) shipped in 2006, however in 2007 and 2008, no exports were reported in this sector.

According to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) survey in 2006 of foreign investment in Mali, Canadian firms active there included Segibel/SOTELMA (telecommunications), two Internet service providers, Afribone and Experco International, and a water drilling firm, Hydro Sahel. Canada has been exporting an average of U$185k annually in railway equipment into Mali over the period 2004–2008. Since 1998, the Canadian Bank Note Company has been doing business with the Government of Mali, providing printed sales tax stickers, holographic motor vehicle tax decals, and passports and passport printing equipment. In 2007, the Canadian Bank Note Company's passport-printing contract with Mali was renewed for five years.

Canada Pension Plan
The Canada Pension Plan is the Canadian government's public retirement pension fund for all Canadian citizens who have worked in Canada, with the exception of citizens of the province of Quebec. The fund is managed by the CPP Investment Board, and over 2006–2011, four Canadian and two foreign-based firms active wholly or in part in Mali have received investments from the fund, totalling $110m. in 2011. Not included in the following table is SNC Lavalin, a Montreal-based international civil engineering firm which has carried out several CIDA and World Bank-sponsored projects in Mali; the CPP had invested an average of $78m. in this company's shares over 2006–2008.

Quebec Pension Plan
For the one quarter of Canada's population residing in the province of Quebec, their public pension fund is administered by that province independently from the federal government. Managed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, this fund has invested in four Canadian-domiciled firms, and two foreign-based firms active in Mali during 2001-2011, all in the subsoil extractive industry. These investments have represented between 0.01% and 0.03% of the Quebec fund's total investments. QPP investees active in Mali that are not included in the following table are two Canadian firms operating in many countries: (a) Boart Longyear Group, a drilling services company working with a number of Canadian junior mining companies in Mali, in which La Caisse invested $2.4m. in 2007 only, and (b) Montreal-based SNC Lavalin, in which the QPP held an average of Cdn.$262m. in shares over 2006–2008.

Export Development Canada
Export Development Canada, the Canadian government's export credit agency, has provided Canadian firms doing business in Mali with over Cdn.$10m. in financial support since 2005. All funds went to Canadian companies working in the non-extractive sectors, with the exception in 2007 of Cdn.$300k to the extractive sector.

Mining
The Government of Mali reported that mining surpassed cotton in its contribution to the national economy in 1997, and it has remained Mali's chief export earner.

Natural Resources Canada estimated Canadian investment in Mali mining in 2009 at Cdn.$500 million (US $450m.), primarily in exploration for, and mining of gold. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported the total stock of direct inward foreign investment in Mali in 2007 to be $1.3bn. In 2006, when Natural Resources Canada reported Cdn.$179m. in Canadian mining assets in Mali (US$158m.), UNCTAD reported that Mali's total FDI stock was US$966m. so in that year Canadian mining assets represented 16% of total Malian foreign investment stock; averaged over 2001–2006, Canadian mining assets in Mali represented 31% of Mali's total stock of foreign investment. Over 2003–2007, Canada's share of global gold fabrication declined from 5.6% to 4.4% while Mali's rose from 1.8% to 2.4%.

Averaged over four annual surveys from 2006–2009, Canada's Fraser Institute ranked Mali 18th-most favourable among 68 to 71 jurisdictions (Canadian provinces, Australian and U.S. states, countries) on its "Current mineral potential index", an assessment of both unexploited mineral resources potential and the degree to which government policies encourage mining investment. On the survey's "Best practices mineral potential index", which assesses perceived mineral assets independently of social and regulatory environments, Mali plummeted from the top-most favourable position out of 64 locations in 2005/2006 to the fourth-least favourable position out of 71 in 2008/2009. The Fraser Institute calculated that Mali had the least "room for improvement" of the 71 jurisdictions surveyed in 2008/2009: over six hundred mining company managers' perceptions of the magnitude of Mali's unexploited subsoil resources have diminished markedly, despite the country's policy environment remaining attractive. Despite intense gold exploration activity in Mali over the past two decades by Canada and other countries, no large gold deposits on the scale of Sadiola or Morila (both scheduled for closure in 2013) have yet to materialize. The Fraser Institute survey also deemed Mali the seventh-most favourable location out of 71 with respect to its environmental policy: 80% of miners surveyed considered these regulations as either encouraging or not a deterrent to investment. On the Fraser Institute's "Economic Freedom of the World" index, which assesses the degree to which "policies and institutions of countries" determine such things as "personal choice" and "freedom to compete" Mali was given an average ranking of 94th place among 123 to 130 countries over 2000–2006, based on factors including government size, the security of property rights, and regulatory policies.

Ten of the "at least 19" foreign mining companies reported by the United States Geological Survey as active in Mali in 2006 were incorporated in Canada. In mid-2009, Canadian firms holding mineral exploration licenses in Mali numbered at least fourteen (followed by home office location and resource(s) of interest, if not gold): Afcan Mining Corporation, (acquired by Eldorado Gold Corporation, Vancouver, in 2005), African Gold Group Inc. (Toronto), African Metals Corporation (Surrey, B.C.; diamonds), Avion Gold Corporation (headquartered in Toronto, in 2008 acquired Malian gold properties previously mined by Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources Ltd.), Axmin Inc. (Toronto), Delta Exploration Inc. (partnered with Rockgate Capital Corp., Vancouver; copper and uranium), Etruscan Resources Inc. (Halifax), Great Quest Metals Ltd. (Vancouver; diamonds, gold, phosphate), IAMGOLD Corp. (Toronto), Merrex Gold Inc. (Bedford, N.S.), Metalex Ventures Ltd. (Kelowna, B.C.), North Atlantic Resources Ltd. (Toronto; gold, oil & gas), Robex Resources Inc. (Sillery, Quebec), and Volta Resources (Toronto, acquired in 2008 three exploration licenses in Mali). Ottawa-based Orezone Resources held two exploration permits in western Mali, however it reported abandoning them in 2007. Boart Longyear Canada (North Bay, Ontario), and formerly Quebec's St. Lambert Drilling, have undertaken drilling contracts in Mali for African Gold Group, Avion Resources, Delta Exploration Inc., Etruscan Resources, Merrex Gold and Robex. In 2007, Heritage Oil Limited acquired two oil exploration properties in Mali's northern Gao region; the company was registered in Calgary, Canada up until 2008, however has since incorporated in Jersey, Channel Islands. Selier Energy Limited, a subsidiary of Toronto-based North Atlantic Resources, signed a sharing agreement with the Government of Mali in 2007 for its oil concession in northern Mali, to undertake four years of exploration with US$11.9m. invested.

Of the Canadian-domiciled mining firms active in Mali, all but two are junior exploration companies. IAMGOLD Corp. (indirectly) and Avion Gold Corporation, are carrying out industrial-scale gold production in open-pit operations in western Mali. Vancouver's Nevsun Resources produced 1,279 kg, or 2.2% of Mali's gold output in 2006 at the Tabakoto mine and 1,769 kg in 2007 (3.4% of Malian total), however they reported incurring losses since production began in May 2006. Toronto-based Avion Gold acquired Nevsun's Tabakoto and Segala properties in Mali in 2008, and has predicted production of 66,000 ounces of gold (2,053 kg) in 2009.

Gold produced by Canadian-Malian-South African SEMOS consortium
IAMGOLD (formerly AGEM and International African Mining Gold Corporation) has been active in Mali since the late 1980s, and partnered in 1992 with South Africa's AngloGold Limited (reincorporated as AngloGold Ashanti in 2004). The Government of Mali issued their joint venture, incorporated as SEMOS, a mining exploitation permit in 1994 to undertake gold exploration in the Sadiola area of western Mali's Kayes Region. Financing, totaling U$250m., was obtained from the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank ($160m.), the European Investment Bank, Germany Investment and Development Company (DEG), Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), Proparco (France) and others. Commercial exploitation of the Sadiola gold mine began in 1996, with the nearby Yatéla mine opening in 2001. The two mines are collectively owned under the consortium (38% and 40% shares, respectively, to each of IAMGOLD and AngloAmerican Ashanti), with smaller shares held by the Government of Mali (18% and 20% respectively) and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (6% for Sadiola only). The terms of IAMGOLD's and AngloGold Ashanti's joint venture stipulate that the day-to-day operations are the administrative responsibility of AngloGold Ashanti, and AngloGold Ashanti collects an additional 1% of Sadiola's revenue for this service. In August 2009, IAMGOLD announced that it had entered an option agreement permitting it to acquire a 51% ownership of Channel Islands-registered Avnel Gold Mining Ltd. Avnel had been operating the underground Kalana gold mine in southwest Mali since 2002, and recovering an annual average of 22,000 ounces of gold (680 kg) over 2006–2008, or about 1% of Mali's total output.

The Sadiola and Yatéla mines are scheduled for decommissioning and closure during 2010–2013. A satellite mine to Yatela, the Alamatoula pit, was closed in 2005.

The following table shows that the Sadiola and Yatela mines have been responsible for half of Mali's gold output over the last decade.

Sadiola and Yatéla gold mine profits reported by IAMGOLD Corp. and AngloGold Ashanti
While IAMGOLD and AngloGold hold equal 38% and 40% shares in the Sadiola and Yatela mines, respectively, the net earnings reported in their individual annual reports differ. AngloGold Ashanti, while not reporting these mines' earnings separately during five of the years between 1996 and 2008, reports for the remaining years total earnings of $248m., while IAMGOLD reports $308m. for all 13 years. The most recent five years during which both companies reported earnings show a discrepancy of 13% (AngloGold: $172m.; IAMGOLD: $198m.), with IAMGOLD reporting $26m. more, despite IAMGOLD reporting that AngloGold Ashanti received an additional 1% of earnings in return for management of the mines.

Revenue distribution of Sadiola and Yatéla gold mines, 1996–2007
AngloGold Ashanti published in 2008 breakdowns of the Sadiola and Yatela gold mine revenue, which it has managed since their inception in 1996 and 2001, respectively. In 2007, AngloGold Ashanti also reported the total revenue injected into the Malian economy over these mines' lifetimes up to 2006. The following table reports those figures, and imputes total revenue apportionment according to the 2008 percentages.

The imputed earnings of both IAMGOLD Corp. and AngloGold Ashanti, U$156m. over 1996–2006, are 27% lower than the total revenue IAMGOLD reported in its annual reports over this period, U$214.9m (nominal currency). AngloGold Ashanti, and its predecessor AngloGold, did not report Sadiola and Yatela earnings separately in its annual reports for four years in this period, however the sum for the other six years, $224m. exceeded the IAMGOLD total by 4%, and the imputed earnings of $156m. are 30% lower.

IAMGOLD Corp.'s shares in the Sadiola and Yatéla mines have been the subject of several legal disputes. In 2000, the Republic of Mali began collecting stamp duty taxes on SEMOS's export applications, and SEMOS contested this in 2001 at an arbitration tribunal of the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID); SEMOS's argument was that it was exempt from such payments, since this tax applied only to companies registered under the 1999 Mining Code, and SEMOS had in its establishment conventions stability guarantees under the 1970 and 1991 Mining Codes. The ICSID decided in 2003 in favour of SEMOS, calling for the Malian government to reimburse SEMOS for the US$2.60m. it had "unduly collected" up to 2002. France's International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) noted that "[a] public audit in December 2003 concluded that the mines of Sadiola and Yatela owe the State approximately 15.6 million dollars in unpaid taxes on revenues and related fines between 2000 and 2002 (532 million CFA francs were paid by 30 June 2002) ... The armwrestling continued until the fourth quarter of 2005. In settlement, the State only received 5.2 million dollars, a third of the amount due" (FIDH 2007: 40). IAMGOLD reported in 2005 having paid a $2.0m. deposit towards its $5.9m. share claimed by the Malian government; further audit claims were received by IAMGOLD from Mali's Tax Administration for 2005 and 2006. In 2008, IAMGOLD listed among its "other long-term assets" the claim that the Government of Mali owed IAMGOLD $13.1m. in "fuel tax, value added tax ('VAT'), and stamp duties receivable", down from $20.0m. reported as owed in 2007. A footnote for Government of Mali funds owing in IAMGOLD's 2007 report stated that "[i]n addition, receivables and other current assets include an additional $10,221,000 (2006 – $18,447,000) relating to similar items". In 2009, the Government of Mali was predicted to refund the value-added tax (VAT) and import duty due on 2006–07 gold operations to mining companies, a sum amounting to US$122m, or 1.5% of GDP; this was "agreed in order to maintain foreign investor confidence and thus underpin prospects for future development and production in the sector". Ottawa-based Kinbauri Gold Corporation received $3.8m. in settlement from IAMGOLD arising from a legal action in which Kinbauri claimed breach of contract, wherein IAMGOLD had failed to amalgamate in 1990 with Kinbauri.

IAMGOLD's shares in Mali's mines represented 24% of the company's total gold production in 2008 (Annual Report 2008: 37), and these mines' net earnings, $41m., accounted for 29% of IAMGOLD's global earnings (2008: 142).

Socio-economic and environmental impact studies
At least eight independent groups have published studies of the broader impacts of the Canadian-Malian-South African joint-owned Sadiola and Yatela mines, namely, Canada's North/South Institute (2000), France's Les Amis De La Terre (Friends Of The Earth) (2003), Norway's Chr. Michelsen Institute (2006) on behalf of the World Bank, Oxfam America (2006), France's International Federation of Human Rights, the United Nations Global Compact, and two research groups at the University of Quebec at Montreal including the Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique (GRAMA). The two major and recurrent findings in these studies were (1) the public inaccessibility of information on the allocation of Sadiola and Yatela gold revenues, either from the companies or from the Government of Mali,  and (2) the Government of Mali's inadequate capacity to manage health and environmental aspects of these mines. In 2007, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) sponsored the Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche en Sociologie et Droit Appliqué (GERSDA), a team of Malian researchers at the University of Bamako to investigate community relations with the Kalana gold mine (for which Canada's IAMGOLD announced an option to acquire majority control in 2009 ) and concluded that "[i]n Mali, the debate about the mining sector, and gold mining in particular, raises a range of contentious issues, and has seen the press and NGOs wrangling with mining companies and the government over the figures involved. [...] These [...] reports have expressed concerns about the way the government and mining companies negotiate Conventions of Establishment, about respect for environmental standards in mining sites, about mine workers' conditions, and about how mining revenues are distributed and used. Malian NGOs have also expressed their disquiet about the yawning gap between the mining companies' profits and the poverty and environmental problems in communities living near their mines".

In its annual Health, Safety and Sustainability Report, IAMGOLD Corp. makes no mention of corporate social responsibility activities in Mali, deferring to its managing partner, AngloGold Ashanti. AngloGold Ashanti has published its own social and environmental impact studies, including on the compulsory displacement and resettlement of three communities of 2,000 persons before the Sadiola mine began operation, development initiatives for communities surrounding the Sadiola and Yatéla mines, and four hundred wildlife fatalities over 2002–2004 attributed to elevated cyanide and sodium concentrations in the waste ponds.

In 2002 and 2003, French documentary film-maker Camille de Vitry began gathering testimony of adverse health effects from residents in the villages adjoining the Sadiola and Yatéla mines, including very high rates of miscarriage among women living in Yatéla (de Vitry 2009: 56–58), and respiratory ailments associated with the high dust levels (de Vitry 2009: 72–73). These investigations led de Vitry to l’Association des ressortissants de Sadiola en France (ARSF), an immigrants' group based in the Montreuil suburb of Paris, which met with representatives from AngloGold Ashanti in 2003. In 2004, de Vitry screened her film Le prix de l'or in Mali and in the same year, she reported that the Montreal-based Groupe de recherches sur les activités minières en Afrique (GRAMA) began to collaborate.

In 2007, Richard Cox, AngloGold Ashanti's General Manager at the time for the Sadiola and Yatéla mines, responded by writing that "[a] recent documentary and published NGO reports have highlighted community fears that our mining activity has and is having a negative impact on community health. Specific mention is made of the higher incidence of miscarriages, and the deterioration in water quality since the start of mining at Sadiola and Yatela. In response to this, Sadiola and Yatela are funding research by the Malian National Institute for Public Health Research [INRSP] in collaboration with the Malian National Laboratory of Health and the Department of Epidemiology of Parasitic Infections of the Faculty of Medicine to investigate and establish whether the community concerns are valid. The research has been planned in two phases – the first, a qualitative study, has been completed. The results of Phase 1 have suggested that further investigation is warranted. An outcome of Phase 1 was the recording of the population demographics to be researched in Phase 2 – the quantitative study. Phase 2 has two parts: an analysis of water quality and an epidemiological study comprising a medical study and clinical and biomedical analyses. The outcome of the Phase 2 research is planned for the fourth quarter of 2007, in time for the annual Stakeholder Workshop". In 2007, Cox wrote that "Phase 2 of the epidemiological study (quantitative study) was due for publication by the INRSP at the 2007 [public stakeholders'] workshop. However, the scale of the medical study delayed the completion of the clinical and biomedical analyses – a total of 21 villages and 11,675 people were surveyed by 75 specialists under the governance of the INRSP. In January 2008, the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine (Belgium) conducted an audit of the methodology used in the quantitative study. The new target date for publication of Phase 2 epidemiological study is April 2008". In AngloGold Ashanti's country report for Mali in 2008 (combining information from Sadiola, Yatela and the Morila gold mine), a statement dated 6 March 2009 by Terry Mulpeter, the General Manager for Sadiola and Yatela, included: "The sixth community workshop [for Sadiola and Yatela] took place in January 2009 [...] The forum disclosed that the concerns of the community about the effect of mining operations on health were unfounded following an investigation conducted by the Malian National Institute for Public Health (INRSP) in collaboration with the Malian National Laboratory of Health and the Department of Epidemiology of Parasitic Infections at the University of Bamako's Faculty of Medicine. These results will be communicated to the surrounding villages during 2009 [...] Both [the Sadiola and Yatela] sites were audited for compliance by the International Cyanide Management Institute (ICMI) with results published during the first quarter. Sadiola is substantially compliant and there is an action plan for the operation to be fully compliant by the end of 2009. Yatela is fully compliant.". This report also states that AngloGold Ashanti's overall cost for its operations in Mali ($218.7m. for Sadiola, Yatela, Morila) exceeded gold income ($186.0m.) by 17.6%, that $80.0m. was paid in dividends and taxes to the Government of Mali, $16.2m. paid in salaries and wages, $0.62m. went to local community development and related initiatives, and that the Malian government refunded $3.0m in VAT (value-added tax) based on a 2006 exemption "approved by the Minister of Finance" (2009: 13); it was further noted that "[t]he primary occupational health risks at Sadiola and Yatela are dust, heat and noise" (2009:19). Revenue to the government and workers in Mali thus represented 52% of AngloGold Ashanti's reported 2008 income from its mines in Mali.

De Vitry states that AngloGold Ashanti constructed a zero-discharge dam around the Yatela tailings pond in 2004 to prevent cyanide run-off during the rainy season, and since then, Yatela residents have reported birth rates to be "very satisfying", i.e., comparable to rates for the surrounding region (de Vitry 2009: 153–154). The construction of the discharge dam was also reported in an AngloGold email to the expatriates' association, ASRF. Invited in early 2009 by AngloGold Ashanti to attend the annual community stakeholders' workshop in Sadiola, de Vitry reported that the second phase of the AngloGold-funded epidemiological study was completed in 2009, that the results were reported to be "excellent", with only dust-related respiratory illnesses still unresolved (de Vitry 2009: 153). SHERPA, a Paris-based human rights group, since 2003 has represented Sadiola and Yatela miners and their families who experienced adverse health consequences (and fatalities) from work in the mines (de Vitry 2009: 104, 140, 147, 153). SHERPA and "Friends of Earth [sic]" are listed by AngloGold Ashanti among the community stakeholders with "complains [sic] for compensation" at Sadiola and Yatela. In 2005, AngloGold reported that "it is dust caused by traffic between the [Yatela and Sadiola] mines – situated about 30 kilometres apart – that is of greatest concern to neighbouring communities" and that the company undertook road watering and the construction of an alternate road away from the affected villages in response. At AngloGold Ashanti's annual Sadiola and Yatela stakeholders' consultation workshop for "local communities; regional and national government; national and international non-government organisations; the media; mine management; AngloGold Ashanti and the IFC (International Finance Corporation)" in January 2009, "[i]ssues raised included: [...] review of progress made with the epidemiological study" (AngloGold 2008: 143), that "[c]omplaints were received from community members at Sadiola and Yatela, relating to the contamination of grazing land by mud, death of cattle, and water shortages in Sadiola and Farabakouta villages" (2008: 145) and that two community protest actions occurred in 2008 at Sadiola concerning "the water supply" (2008:148). In 2008, the Sadiola and Yatela mines employed 364 persons directly by AngloGold Ashanti, and 566 through contractors (2008: 93); 2.0% of employees in 2008 were reported to be expatriates, while in 2007 the ratios were 4.7% (Sadiola) and 5.7% (Yatela) (2008:108).

Only one article in major Canadian news sources, Vancouver's The Province, appears to have reported on the adverse health and environmental effects associated with the part-Canadian-owned Sadiola and Yatela mines, however no mention of IAMGOLD Corp. was made.

In 2000, Canada's North/South Institute social audit of the Sadiola Mine included the recommendation that the "Canadian aid program consider ways of getting involved in the region affected by the Sadiola gold mine, perhaps through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives" (2000: xviii). Since 2003, the Canadian International Development Agency has since undertaken projects in the Kayes Region (where Sadiola and Yatela are situated) in the areas of health and education. However, as has been noted by the March 2007 Advisory Group Report for the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries, "[i]n the past, CIDA has partnered with civil society organisations that provided support to communities affected by mining operations. This work sought to strengthen communities' capacity to effectively engage in decision-making processes regarding mining investments, thereby reducing the risk of conflict. It was reported that CIDA no longer supports this type of work". The eighteen-member advisory group, convened by the Government of Canada as part of national roundtable process to recommend corporate social responsibility measures for Canadian extractive firms operating in developing countries, consisted of representatives from industry, civil society and academia, including retired IAMGOLD Corp. geologist, Dennis Jones.

In 2009 at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention, IAMGOLD Corp. chaired a roundtable discussion with invited government ministers from Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Canada. Mali's Minister of Mines, Mamadou Igor Diarra, called for greater transparency by the foreign companies, increased investment in skills transfer and training of host nationals, and more detailed post-mining reclamation plans. In 2004, IAMGOLD co-founder Mark Nathanson established a full scholarship for mineral exploration graduate students at Queen's University in Canada, with preference given to students from nine countries in Africa and Latin America where IAMGOLD Corp. owns concessions, including Mali. IAMGOLD's co-partner in Mali, AngloGold Ashanti, reported providing mining scholarships for ten Malian students at the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 2007, at a cost of $44k, and again in 2008. In 2007, CIDA provided Cdn.$10,000 in scholarship funds as part of its bilateral assistance envelope for Mali.

The Kenieba Valley south of Sadiola in western Mali is home to a number of gold and diamond concessions owned by Canadian junior mining companies, including African Metals Corp., Avion Gold Corp., Great Quest Metals and Robex Resources. In 2006, the United States Geological Survey estimated that 100,000 of the 200,000 people living in Kenieba were employed in small-scale and artisanal gold mining; half were women. AngloGold Ashanti initially provided an alternate artisanal mining location for those "orpailleurs", whose seasonal work was disrupted by the industrial Sadiola mine, however the Government of Mali halted the initiative, as the current mining code bars artisanal miners from working on industrially-registered concessions (Chr. Michelsen Institute 2006: 37). On the Canadian-owned African Gold Group concession of Kobada in southern Mali in 2008, Malian artisanal miners discovered a gold nugget weighing 2.7 kg, which they sold to buyers in Bamako, rather than turning it over to the concession-holders. Industrial gold mining has supplanted small-scale gold mining steadily over the past three decades: by one estimate, Mali's artisanal gold production fell from 4.6 tonnes in 1988 (88% of combined artisanal and industrial output) to 1.7 tonnes in 2001 (6% of total output) The US Geological Survey estimated Malian artisanal gold production at 2.1 tonnes, or 3.9% of total gold output in 2006, and 4.0 tonnes, or 8.4% of 2007 production.

Immigration and remittances
The 2006 Census of Canada estimated that there were 855 persons originally from Mali living in Canada, 390 having arrived since 2001; Malian immigrants comprised 0.0027% of Canada's population. France is the largest non-African country of residence for Malian immigrants. With a total population of 64.6m. in 2006, France was home to 120,000 Malians in 2005, of whom 45,500 were in possession of official status with a "titre de séjour" residence permit. In 2006, Malians represented 0.070% (landed immigrants) and 0.19% (total immigrants) of the French population. Were Canada to adopt France's ratio of 190 Malian total immigrants per 100,000 population, 59,000 Malians would be living in Canada, or about 70 times greater than the current level. If Canada matched per capita France's legally-registered 45,500 Malians with residence permits, it would have 22,800 Malian-Canadians, or 27 times more than at present.

In 2008, Statistics Canada released preliminary data surveying the remittance-sending behaviour of recent Canadian immigrants and found that 39% of immigrants of sub-Saharan African origin were remitting on average $2,500 per annum to their countries of origin. Immigrants from all countries with gross per capita domestic products under $2,000 (including Mali) had an average 33% remittance rate, with an average contribution of $2,100. Assuming that 36% of the 855 immigrants remit an annual average of $2,300, Malian private inflows from Canada would amount to $708,000. This represents 1.2% of the level of Canada's bilateral official development assistance of $60.8m. in 2006–2007.

If Canada's officially registered intake of Malians paralleled that of France, and if these 22,800 Malian-Canadians collectively made home remittances similar to those in Statistics Canada's 2008 preliminary survey of recent immigrants, with 36% of them sending $2,300 per year, total remittances from Canada to Mali would be around $19m. per annum; that is 31% of what CIDA provided in official bilateral aid to the country in 2006/2007. Such remittance levels would amount to about 0.3% of Mali's GDP. By comparison, an estimate from the French government was that their country's total of 120,000 Malian immigrants were remitting Euro 295m. to Mali in 2005, or 7% of the Malian GDP. In a 2007 survey of citizens in 36 developing countries, Mali ranked third-highest after Lebanon and Bangladesh in reporting that they were receiving money from relatives living abroad: 42% of surveyed Malians said they were receiving remittances from relatives abroad either frequently or occasionally.

Canada's restrictive immigration quotas for Malians have come under criticism. Journalist and long-time Africa correspondent Joan Baxter writes that "Cameroonian and Malian friends with full-time jobs as journalists were turned down for visas to visit my family in Canada, despite my letters of invitation. They were told they could not prove they were not planning to stay. Many Africans have suggested to me over the years that Canada is even more restrictive and unfair in its visa practices than are other Western nations".

There is at least one private agency in Canada for the adoption of Malian children, l'Agence d'adoption les enfants du Mandé, based in Longueuil, Quebec. Certified in 2007 by Quebec's Minister of Health and Social Services, the agency was reportedly limited to five Malian adoptions in its first year, of abandoned and orphaned children, from an estimated total of 100–150 Malian child adoptions worldwide. The total adoption cost was estimated to be between $13,000 – $17,000 per child.

The current state of relations
President Amadou Toumani Touré and a delegation of Malian officials paid a state visit to Canada in May 2005, including events in Ottawa and in New Brunswick. Touré also visited Quebec City in October 2008 for the annual Francophonie Summit.

The Governor General of Canada, Michaëlle Jean included Mali in her 2006 state visit to five African nations, and she was only the second head of state after Nelson Mandela to address the National Assembly of Mali.

In 2008, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs provided a $600,000 grant to L'École de Maintien de la Paix Alioune Blondin Beye (EMP), a training school for 800 African peacekeepers in Bamako. Since 2006, instructors from Canada's Department of National Defence and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre have provided training there, in concert with Mali, France and other European partners.

Virginie Saint-Louis was appointed the Canadian Ambassador to Mali in January 2009. One of her first official functions was to attend an annual stakeholders' workshop sponsored by the Canadian/Malian/South African SEMOS gold mining consortium in Sadiola.

Malian-Canadians residing in the Canadian capital region have established a group whose mission includes the promotion of Canadian investment in Mali. The Government of Mali's Ministry of Housing, Land Affairs and Planning, in concert with several Malian banks, held its first "Salon de l'Habitat du Mali" international exhibition in Montreal in May 2009, in order to encourage expatriate Malians to acquire land and homes back in Mali, as well as encourage foreign investment in their country by the diaspora.

In 2009, the Government of Canada announced that Mali, along with neighbouring Ghana and Senegal and just four other African countries (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sudan, Tanzania), was one of 20 developing nations to benefit from a concentration of four-fifths of Canada bilateral (country-to-country) aid.

In April 2009, the intervention of Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré was instrumental in the release of two Canadian diplomats, Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, who had been taken as hostages in the Republic of Niger during December 2008. In an official communiqué, the Government of Mali quoted the Canadian Ambassador, Mrs. Saint-Louis, as thanking President Touré for showing once again, that he supports Canada, and President Touré responded that his country spared no effort to free the two Canadian diplomats on behalf of the cooperation and friendship between Canada and Mali.

The Canadian government in mid-2009 advised exercising a "high degree of caution" for persons traveling in Mali, and advised against all travel to the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, owing to heightened security risks from groups there, including Tuareg rebels.

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, met in Mali, in August 2009, with President Amadou Toumani Touré to discuss bilateral and regional relations, and also visited the Canadian-government-supported École de maintien de la paix Alioune Blondin Beye (EMP).

Mali in 2010 was the site of one of three international and five Canadian consultative meetings during the first year of the Canadian government's Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor activities, with discussions held with members of civil society, the private sector, and embassy officials.

During the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, Canada declared its position in response to the Unilateral Declaration of independence of Azawad saying that "We are absolutely not recognizing this declaration"

Common memberships
Canada and Mali both hold membership in a number of multinational organizations including:
 * Food and Agriculture Organization
 * Francophonie
 * International Development Association
 * International Monetary Fund
 * International Olympic Committee
 * Interpol
 * Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
 * United Nations
 * UNESCO
 * World Health Organization
 * World Trade Organization
 * World Bank

Quotations

 * Rick Antonson, CEO & President, Tourism Vancouver: "I walked over fields and roads strewn with litter. In Ségou, garbage ruled, shards of bright-coloured plastic poked through everywhere. But even my few weeks in this country forced me to accept the shabbiness, the torn living-room furniture the homeowner overlooks but guests notice. It was as though Mali had become the world's rubbish bin. Malians were as likely to talk about the never-changing weather as about the never-changing mess. I should be no more appalled at the litter there than they would be at the plentiful table scraps we Westerners put in our garburators." "In all my travels in Mali, I never found despair. Hardship, disappointment, poverty, indifference, and resignation were always evident, more so than hope. But never despair. The people have one another. 'Westerners don't understand Africa,' I was told. 'They say everyone's poor. That is not it. Africans are very happy in the good countries. Poor, yes, but what is that? They are happy.' The visitors' reward is to witness the resilence, the wealth, of the human spirit."


 * Ali Farka Touré, musician, on his farm in Niafunké, Mali, in 2003, as told to Canadian journalist Joan Baxter: "I prefer life here. That other life [of musical stardom] was – if you'll excuse my language – like dried crap; you step it in [sic] and it just doesn't stick. If God gave me big buildings in the United States or Canada or Japan or Germany or Australia, could I put them in my pocket and bring them home? No, that's impossible."


 * Stephanie Nolen, Africa correspondent for the Globe and Mail, 2003–2008: "Mali has a history as a centre of learning and cultural richness that stretches back to the 10th century. It has two large rivers and vast agricultural potential. It has an entrenched democracy, great accord between its many ethnic groups, a national commitment to consensus, strong initiatives to counter corruption and healthy respect for human rights. On paper, this country is a World Bank poster child. So why does the suffocating pall of poverty cling so tenaciously to this place? Landlocked, stable, without any headline-grabbing exports to fight over, Mali rarely garners much attention in the outside world [...] it's worth a closer look at what has happened, and what has not, in Mali."


 * Hélène Tremblay, Canadian writer and traveler, on a farming family in rural Mali: "Avoiding migration to the city is a major concern. Often, educated people leave their village. To keep people at home the chief has refused funds to build a school for the last twenty years. But when the neigbouring village built a school, the chief changed his mind and finally agreed to accept the aid money. The village has now had a local school for three years."


 * Unnamed member of Sansanding commune, Mali; participant in village development project financed by SUCO Mali and Cardinal Léger et ses Oeuvres (Canada): "Thanks to the partnership, truly everyone has received the money; it has been equitable; there has been equality in the division of funds between men and women. As a result of this transparency, there has been no exclusion. The experience has enabled people to regain trust in their structures. It has been a great innovation to see women associating with men, in the same space, thanks to the accompaniment process of SUCO-Mali/CLO. One of the most crucial elements of respect for individual and collective freedoms is the right to expression, freedom of speech. In the public arena everyone, literate and illiterate, is together."


 * Ernest Akpoue, Trade Commissioner, The Embassy of Canada to Mali: "[Mali] has established an attractive and competitive mining code which has conformed to international standards since 1991 and which was revised in 1999 to make it more attractive to private investors. [...] There are 112 companies involved in mining, of which 56 are national and 36 foreign, including 10 Canadian companies. Foreign companies from Australia, the U.S., China, France, England, Norway, Russia, Malaysia, Turkey and Germany participate in every phase of mining activity, either alone or in partnership with each other or with local companies. [...] With regard to the substances to be mined, Canadian companies must target in addition to gold: bauxite, iron, manganese, uranium, oil, construction materials (cement, lime) and substances for agricultural input like phosphates. As this is the best opportunity in the mining sector, Canadian companies must also target medium-scale operations in the form of small and medium-sized enterprises. At this time, this dimension is virtually inexistent [sic] in Mali, which seriously hinders the integration of mining into the national economic network."


 * Robert Calderisi, Canadian, former CIDA and World Bank economist for Africa: "Ten Ways of Changing Africa [...] 4. Focus direct aid on four to five countries that are serious about reducing poverty. Serious countries should be taken out of the 'intensive care unit'. They no longer need the close monitoring they have received until now; instead, they should be given more generious and flexible support. Unfortunately, there are only five of them: Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and perhaps Mali."
 * Evaluation Division, Canadian International Development Agency, on the Canada-Mali Cooperation Program: "...one of Canada's key strengths [is] the management and control of public finances. It would seem essential to continue efforts in this area, through long-term technical assistance, specialized supports to be gradually reduced over time, and sustained policy dialogue. Maintaining a close long-term partnership between Malian and Canadian stakeholders will considerably increase the likelihood of sustainability." "In Mali, the state has resolutely undertaken a process of liberalization and withdrawal from activities more suited to the private sector, be it financial services, agricultural development or business, in order to focus on its kingly [sic] missions and on the creation of an environment favourable to investment and private sector development. This process has encountered major stumbling blocks, including the weakness of private operations and the lack of means to strengthen their capacities. Additionally, long decades of interventionism have left deep traces in ways of thinking."


 * Joan Baxter, Canadian journalist living in Mali, late 1990s/early 2000s: "Newcomers from other parts of the planet often assume that cities such as Bamako are dens of abject suffering and misery. But inside many of those crumbling walls are mostly reasonabl[y] healthy and apparently happy people living difficult, but dignified lives. Yes, they have to deal with many big problems that would send me down a rabbit-hole of despair and depression. But for all the problems and hardships they have to confront every day, many of them matters of life and death, many Malians – like most Africans – remain stoic and cheerful, full of humour. They are both resigned to whatever fate God or Allah has in store for them and also ready to leap at any opportunity that comes their way to better their lot in life. It certainly helps that in some countries or parts of countries they still have their rich culture to fall back on."

Further reading and viewing
Text
 * Antonson, Rick. 2008. To Timbuktu for a Haircut – A Journey Through West Africa, Toronto: Dundurn Group. (travel memoir of one month stay in Mali, in 2004)
 * Baxter, Joan. 2008. Dust from our Eyes: An unblinkered look at Africa, Hamilton: Wolsak & Wynn. (a Canadian journalist's 25 years in Africa, most recently, seven years in Mali; includes chapters on Malian culture, mining, foreign relations)
 * Belem, Gisèle. 2009. Quelle gouvernance pour la mise en oeuvre du développement durable? l'expérience de l'industrie minière du Mali, Ph.D. thesis, Environmental Sciences, [directrice de recherche, Corinne Gendron], Montréal : Université du Québec à Montréal, 2009.
 * Belem, Gisèle. 2009. "Mining, Poverty Reduction, the Protection of the Environment and the Role of the World Bank Group in Mali", in: Mining in Africa: Regulation and Development, London: Pluto, Chapter 3.
 * Campbell, Bonnie; Belem, Gisèle; Nabe Coulibaly, Vincent. 2007. Poverty Reduction in Africa: On Whose Development Agenda? Lessons from Cotton and Gold Production in Mali and Burkina Faso, Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal.
 * Canadian International Development Agency. 2005. Mali Policy Framework Implementation Strategy (2005–2010), web page, Last Updated: 2006-04-15.
 * Canadian International Development Agency. 2007. Executive Report of the Canada-Mali Cooperation Program Evaluation, December 2007.
 * De Vitry, Camille; avec les ressortissant-e-s de Sadiola. 2009. L'or nègre, Toulouse, France: Tahin Party, 2009. (166-page chronicle, in French, of the filmmaker's work with gold miners and their families at the SEMOS mines, Mali, from 2002–2009)
 * Deneault, Alain; Abadie, Delphine; Sacher, William. 2008. Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, Montreal: Éditions Écosociété, p. 27–38.
 * Gosselin, Claudie; Touré, Bani. 2000. Cohérence des politiques et interventions canadiennes dans la lutte contre la pauvreté : le cas du Mali, Ottawa: North-South Institute.
 * Gutnick, David. 2009. "Better journalists make for better farmers," CBC website, Last Updated: Friday, January 2, 2009. (Canadian aid group Farm Radio's work with Malian broadcasters)
 * Gutnick, David. 2009. "Fighting female mutilation one small village at a time", CBC website, Last Updated: Saturday, January 31, 2009. (Canadian aid-funded women's rights project among the Dogon of Mali)
 * Hatcher, Pascale. 2004. "Mali: Rewriting the Mining Code or Redefining the Role of the State?", in: Regulating Mining in Africa: For Whose Benefit?, Nordic Africa Institute, pp. 39–52.
 * Labarthe, Gilles; Verschave, François-Xavier. 2007. L’or africain: pillages, trafics & commerce international, Marseille: Agone, Oxfam France-Agir ici, Survie, Dossier noir n° 22.
 * Tremblay, Hélène. 2003. A day at Kombre, Mali, Mirabel, Quebec: Families of the World Company. (Tremblay is a Canadian who has lived with families in 116 countries; profiles a 45-year-old cotton farmer, his three wives and extended family in southern Mali)

Video
 * De Vitry, Camille. 2007. The Price of Gold, video, 53 min. (dccumentary includes interviews in 2003 with residents of Farabana and Yatéla, communities adjoining the SEMOS gold mines, attesting to adverse health consequences).
 * Drolet, Stéphane. 1998. Oumar 9-1-1, video, 53 min., Montreal: National Film Board. (documentary portrait of Burkinabé and Malian immigrants living in Montreal, Canada)
 * L'Espérance, Sylvain. 2007. Un fleuve humain (English: The River where we live), video, 92 min., Montreal: Les Films du tricycle. (documentary jointly financed by the governments of Canadian and Quebec; profiles Malian canoe-builders, steamer captains, fish sellers, cattle herders, fishers, all who make their living in proximity to the River Niger)
 * Salgues, Laurent. 2006. Rêves de poussière (English versions: Dreams of Dust; Buried Dreams), video, 86 min., Montréal : K-Films Amérique. Burkinabé-French-Canadian co-production. (feature film about migrant gold-diggers and gold-washers, filmed in Essakane, northeastern Burkina Faso, property previously owned by Orezone Inc., transferred to IAMGOLD Corp. in 2009)
 * Weyman, Bay. 2008. Road to Baleya, video, 89 min., Toronto: Close Up Films. (documentary of four Toronto musicians' interactions with musicians in Bamako and villages in southwest Mali)

Diplomatic offices
Both nations maintain direct high-level diplomatic representatives.
 * Embassy of Mali in Ottawa
 * Embassy of Canada to Mali