Women lead the way for inclusive climate action in Mali
The stories of women like Harareta Maïga and Kanou Traoré are showing how local leadership is steadily reshaping climate resilience in Mali and the wider Sahel region.
Agriculture is the main activity in our village, but in recent years our land has failed to produce enough to feed us. Realising that other women were experiencing the same difficulties as me, I suggested we create a women’s association.
Harareta MaïgaWomen's association leader, Mali
In Pel Maoudé, a small village in Mali’s Koro Cercle, Harareta Maïga recognised there were common struggles among women in her community, and decided to bring them together.
Widowed ten years ago and left to care for six children, she faced worsening drought and economic pressures. When her husband’s death left her without property rights, she looked beyond her own struggles to focus on finding joint solutions.
That idea became KAMONO EJUKO—'We speak the same language’ in the Dogon language—linking 33 women through collective savings. When the association’s first effort stalled, Harareta appealed to the mayor for help and was directed to Pro-ARIDES, a regional initiative supporting climate resilience by investing in local action. The programme trains farmer and agro-pastoralist associations like hers to manage collective funds, and invest in small enterprises.
Training through Musow Ka Jiguiya Ton (‘Hope for Women’) strengthened the association through improved financial literacy, transparency and cooperation.
We have learned to better manage our money and invest in income-generating activities. Our yields have increased, the quality of our products has improved and we have also diversified.
Harareta MaïgaWomen's association leader, Mali
Today, Harareta leads by example, producing sheep meat, process fonio, both precooked and as djouka, and tamarind juice. Her turnover now reaches 315,000 CFA francs (around €480) a month, enough to cover her children’s education and daily needs.
As a community advocate for Pro-ARIDES, she supports other savings groups. “Now recognised as a woman leader, I’m asked to run training sessions for other associations in credit saving and new agricultural techniques.”
Across Mali, more than 218 women’s groups supported by Pro-ARIDES are following similar paths. In the Sahel region, climate impacts such as droughts and land degradation continue to strain rural livelihoods, but initiatives like Pro-ARIDES are showing what happens when grassroots leadership becomes central to adaptation.
The programme is a partnership between SNV, CARE Netherlands, Wageningen University and Research (WUR), and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), together with local partners, national and regional umbrella farmers and pastoralists organisations, local governments and research institutes across Mali, Burkina Faso and the Niger.
Pro-ARIDES takes a systemic focus, connecting tens of thousands of farmers and agro-pastoralist households and supporting decentralised decision-making and local institutions to manage land and water inclusively, thus rooting climate adaptation in genuine community leadership rather than external intervention.
Climate resilience through inclusive land access
More than 250 km away from Harareta's village, in Tèrèkoungo, near San Cercle, Kanou Traoré’s experience adds another dimension: women’s fight for land itself. For years, climate impacts have been stripping the region’s soil of its vitality, but women have faced the additional burden of unequal land access.
“How can we exploit land that isn’t ours?” Kanou used to ask, as women’s exclusion from land ownership left them even more vulnerable and dependent. In response, she gathered a group of villagers to negotiate the right to cultivate a communal garden plot.
At first, the landowner hesitated, wary of bureaucracy and fearful of losing his property. It was only after intervention from the village land commission, guided by Pro-ARIDES, that a solution emerged.
Through awareness sessions on the local Agricultural Land Act and inclusive mediation, the owner agreed to grant women formal access to his land. The resulting certificate secured the plot for four women’s groups, 107 farmers in all. Household diets diversified, with vegetables making up 60 per cent of crops, while 40 per cent of yields were sold to fund schooling and healthcare.
Through awareness, collaboration, and the support of Pro-ARIDES, we transformed fear and misunderstanding into opportunity, unlocking the land's true potential for our community.
Member of the Tèrèkoungo village land commission
For Kanou, access to finance catalysed this breakthrough. With help from the programme, the group opened a savings account with a microfinance institution and obtained credit of 1.56 million CFA francs (around €2,380), later saving more than 2 million CFA francs (more than €3,000) over the next season. Their income now supports small ruminant and poultry rearing, while women have gained new recognition within their households.
Both women’s stories point to the same broader shift underway in the Sahel: transformation rooted in collective effort and local ownership. Harareta’s association builds economic self reliance through savings; Kanou’s group breaks gender barriers through access to land. Together, their experiences illustrate that resilience in Mali and beyond is neither individual nor quick, but grows through inclusion, shared learning and steady cooperation. In Harareta’s words: “This role has enabled me to remain in constant contact with other savings and loan associations.”
That constant contact between people and institutions is where systems transformation begins. From Pel Maoudé to Tèrèkoungo, women are showing that climate adaptation succeeds where communities lead, building resilience every day against fragility.
