Mali Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
March 12, 2012
About the MSI
IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country's media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and began studying Africa in 2006.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download Complete Mali Chapter (PDF): 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2006/7 (français)
MSI Mali-2010 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.99
After overthrowing Moussa Traoré in 1991, General Amadou Toumani Touré led Mali in a democratic transition that was described as exemplary—culminating with the election of Alpha Oumar Konaré, who served two terms of office. with Touré's election as president in 2002, Mali's press enjoys a number of advantages including relatively free media legislation compared with the rest of the continent, although there are still areas of concern for the media community.
Today, out of over 219 authorizations to establish private newspapers, there are only about 40 that appear more or less regularly. About 250 FM radio stations blanekt the country, without counting the eight Malian Office of Radio and Television Broadcasting (ORTM) stations in the regional capitals. In the Bamako district alone, there are 16 radio stations plus the two public channels, while Sikasso and Kayes regions have the most stations, at 52 and 43, respectively. Kidal region has the poorest service, with just seven. As for television, apart from the national channel, people can choose almost 150 rebroadcasted channels in the major cities. The MSI panelists also highlighted the promising growth of the Internet, although this is mostly concentrated in the cities where it is more affordable.
For the print media, apart from the national French-language daily newspaper L'Essor, which covers all the major cities, 90 percent of prviate press circulation goes to Bamako. There are also media outlets that send out news in local languages, covering the Bambara-, Fula-, and Soninke-language areas. More and more local press outlets are also springing up in some large cities.
This proliferation is the result of an environment that is officially favorable, given the legal framework govering the media sector in Mali. Yet despite the burgeoning number of media in Mali, problems do still exist: the economic context is difficult, and there is a lack of well-trained personnel. These problems greatly affect the quality of the newspapers and radio programming, which tend to favor entertainment.
The Mali study was coordinated by, and conducted in partnership with, Media Foundation West Africa, Accra, Ghana.
