Konaté Fanta Diabaté: First female mayor of Kadiana (Mali)

Mrs Konaté Fanta Diabaté is Mayor of the Kadiana rural municipality in the administrative circle of the same name, in Mali’s Bougouni region. She is the first woman to hold such a position in this community of some 30,000 souls spread across 18 villages and 6 hamlets, which borders the Ivorian municipality of Tengréla. At 58, Mrs Konaté is determined to boost local development. Very cheerful and generous, she is described as a determined and courageous Amazon.

“I never thought I’d be mayor one day,” she confides. Having dropped out of school after obtaining a primary school certificate, young Fanta was selected to train as a rural midwife on the instructions of a minister of the republic at the time. This path was quickly closed following her marriage. She works instead to make her organizational skills and leadership at local level prevail. She organized the women in her area into small groups under the “tontine” system. Each member contributes 100 FCFA per week to the fund. The amount collected is redistributed to help them during the winter season. Full of initiative, Mrs Konaté later set up “Malo sémè Ton”, which was soon transformed into a rice-growing cooperative. Unlike the tontine, the cooperative’s funds are used to grant loans to members. At the end of the harvest, these loans are paid back into the cooperative’s fund. A money redistribution system that allows members to thrive.

Since her installation in the mayor’s chair in 2016, Ms. Konaté Fanta Diabaté has been working to consolidate her achievements. Her vision, based on her campaign program, is to see Kadiana become a prosperous town where life is good. On the health front, the municipality has a Community Health Center and rural maternity clinics, some of which lack equipment and qualified staff. The municipality explains its top official, “does not have sufficient resources to provide for the medical staff.” The 4 health center motorcycles had broken down. Only one was repaired thanks to the support of the Kadiana Council, which also donated a new motorcycle. The mayor’s office also provides fuel for the medical team in charge of vaccination in the villages. “Children and pregnant women are the most concerned by this vaccination”.

Kadiana has neither an ambulance nor a multidisciplinary health center. Emergency cases, including women requiring Caesarean sections, are transported to Kolondiéba, 60 km away. The ambulance, says the mayor, must leave from Kolondiéba to evacuate emergency cases. “My ambition is to find the necessary means to ensure effective health coverage for the entire population. We’re a long way from Kolondiéba. The municipality of Kadiana needs a multidisciplinary health center to provide better care for the population.”

Access to drinking water and the construction of small dams to hold back water for the development of market gardening and livestock breeding are major concerns for her, “despite the many efforts of our team, there is a water problem here. I insist on access to safe drinking water. My team and I want to install boreholes everywhere to give people access to it.”

In Kadiana, she admits, access to agricultural inputs is a challenge. She is convinced that increasing the quota allocated to her municipality would contribute to the growth of the agricultural sector. The construction of small water retention dams, she argues, will be a major asset for the development of agro-pastoral activities. To reinforce food security, she places great hope in the management of plains and appeals to the government and partners to carry out this large-scale project. Kadiana is rich in plains, and the land is ideal for growing a wide variety of crops, a godsend for the development of market gardening activities. She is looking for project funding targeting young people (fattening, poultry farming) to curb the migration of the able-bodied.

A widow, she recalls that her late husband never opposed her political activities. “It was her husband who gave us her name to be on the list,” says Zoumana Sangaré, former mayor of Kadiana. Grateful and loyal, she has no intention of deviating from the course set by her predecessor, a man who remains popular in the municipality thanks to his many achievements.

Sources : 1