Mali finalizes its first PEER and the Government plans to take action
With the support of PEI, the Government of Mali finalized a Public Environmental Expenditure Review (PEER) in June 2013. The PEER highlights that natural resources and the environment contribute more than 40 % of GDP and yet the Ministry of Environment only receives 1 % of the national budget. Further, the PEER found that the budget allocations for environmental sustainability are in general irregular and unplanned. The study concluded that the resources allocated to the Ministry of Environment are insufficient compared to their mandate and that there is a gap between policies, budgets and actual allocations. This is alarming considering that the PEI supported economic assessment (2009) in Mali indicated that the costs of inaction pertaining to environmental sustainability amount to 21 % of GDP.
PEI organized a dissemination workshop of the PEER during which the Ministry of Economy and Finance concluded that additional and consistent allocations of budget to pro-poor environmental sustainability are necessary to enhance pro-poor economic development and successful implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy. Subsequently the Ministry of Economy and Finance has started to prepare an annex on poverty-environment to the finance law to be endorsed by the parliament. This annex will aim to secure budgets assigned to P-E objectives.