Rural Women and STIBs: Co-constructing agricultural resilience in Mali

In the Koulikoro region, farmers’ groups, whether women’s, mixed, or organized around community savings, form the backbone of agricultural and social life. Their structures vary: some are long‑established and resilient, carrying forward a tradition of solidarity. The Tomba Cooperative, for example, has existed for more than forty years and illustrates this solidarity among hamlets. Yet, the lack of legal recognition restricts its access to financing and partnerships.

On the other hand, newly established groups are struggling to consolidate their governance and institutional legitimacy. That is the challenge facing the Djai Ka Baara Cooperative, founded in 2015 and legally recognized in 2023, where management and governance weaknesses persist. While groups organized around Savings for Change, such as Benkadi and Moungnoun, demonstrate strong internal solidarity, but remain weakly structured and dependent on traditional practices.

Women’s associations are distinguished for their innovative capacity. Djiguifa and, above all, Ngongôdème in Dougoulakoro reflect this dynamic: there, women produce their own vegetable seeds (onions, okra, African eggplant), enhancing their autonomy and inspiring other groups. These initiatives show that, despite often fragile organizational structures, rural women are able to strengthen internal cohesion and pave the way for sustainable agricultural resilience. Their economic activities rely primarily on rain-fed and lowland rice and ground nut farming, however, this dependence on rainfall makes production vulnerable to climate fluctuations. Women’s groups are seeking opportunities to diversify their activities into vegetable farming, rice parboiling, or the processing of agricultural products such as peanut paste and cowpea. Some initiatives, such as the production of shea butter or soap, have been abandoned due to a lack of market demand. Despite their dynamism, the organizations remain weakened by structural and material constraints.

The challenges are similar across all groups: limited access to water and inadequate irrigation infrastructure, insecure land tenure with borrowed plots, a lack of processing and storage equipment, vulnerability to droughts and floods, and the absence of local markets for processed products. These realities weaken the resilience of these activities and sometimes push women to abandon certain productions. In the process of co‑construction agricultural solutions, women are not merely participants; they are key actors, bringing innovation and resilience to the heart of rural communities.

Women make up the majority of members in nearly all organizations evaluated. They farm, process rice, process byproducts and peanuts, engage in vegetable farming, and organize local savings groups. Their efforts are essential, but their economic autonomy remains hindered by limited access to productive resources and markets.

AfricaRice, through the STIBs project, aims to address the identified constraints by placing women at the heart of the solutions. The co‑construction of STIBs gives women a central role in defining strategies. During participatory workshops, they identify their needs, express their challenges, and propose adapted innovations. This dynamic is illustrated by the Ngongôdème association, where women produce their own vegetable seeds, thereby strengthening their autonomy and inspiring other groups. This participatory approach fully values the role of women and strengthens their decision‑making power. By transforming their constraints into innovations, they consolidate their autonomy and become key actors in agricultural resilience.

The needs expressed by the groups align closely with the principles of the STIBs. They include access to climate‑smart seeds with short cycles, tolerant to drought or floods; the establishment of secure boreholes and irrigation infrastructure to support vegetable farming; the acquisition of agricultural and processing equipment such as threshers, shellers, or multifunctional mills; the strengthening of organizational and governance capacities; as well as the development of sustainable partnerships for the marketing and value addition of products. These elements, integrated into co‑constructed bundles, make it possible to link technical innovations (seeds, irrigation, equipment) with social innovations (savings for change, inclusive governance). The STIBs and GR‑STIBs thus become drivers of transformation, capable of strengthening local resilience and promoting inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

The stories of rural women’s cooperatives and associations in Koulikoro, Mali, reveal consistent evidence: the resilience of food systems rests on women. Despite climatic and material constraints, they innovate, organize, and persevere. STIBs can transform these realities into opportunities when they combine technical and social solutions and place co-creation at the heart of the process.

The recommendations emerging from the workshop and diagnostics converge strengthening the organizational and technical capacities of the groups; facilitating access to financing, agricultural land, inputs, and equipment; promoting diversification of activities and local marketing; and ensuring effective inclusion of gender and youth in decision‑making processes. Thus, the future of agricultural systems in Mali depends on the ability of communities to build inclusive and sustainable bundles. Rural women, through their work and solidarity, are the true architects of this resilience.