The three countries covered in thisfirst report, Mali, Chad and Niger, share a number of commoncharacteristics and face a similar set of challenges, whichprovides the foundation for this joint-review approach. Allthree are low-income landlocked economies. Each reliesheavily on the agricultural sector as its primary source ofincome and livelihoods, and each has a large livestocksubsector that is based in part on traditional nomadicpastoralism. All countries have important natural resourceindustries, gold for Mali, uranium and oil for Niger, andoil for Chad, which represent the bulk of export earningsand public revenue. This dependence on the primary sectorrenders these economies highly vulnerable to weather-relatedshocks and volatile commodity prices. Each is struggling toovercome a legacy of instability and violence, which iscomplicated both by the fragility of domesticsocio-political conditions and the severity of regionalsecurity challenges. Finally, all three countries aremembers of a monetary union that uses a regional currencypegged to the euro and exercises significant influence overthe macroeconomic policies of its member states. At thecenter of the trade-off between stabilization anddevelopment lies public investment management, atmacroeconomic and financial management levels. Faced withrepeated negative shocks, countries tend to cut ongoing andplanned public investment projects which are often designedto reduce drivers of fragility and strengthen the resilienceof economies, thus perpetuating risks of falling intofragility traps. Hence, Section three discusses the impactof public investment volatility on its quality in Chad, Maliand Niger, and explores possible options in terms ofmacroeconomic and public financial management to smoothpublic investment budget execution.
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