This Economic and Sector Work (ESW) isconsistent with the objectives laid out for the transportsector in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), andthe Country Assistance Strategy (CAS), with its two primaryobjectives focused on strengthening existing reforms, and,helping define a forthcoming reform program. The proposedtransport sector strategy relies on three pillars to: 1)promote sustainable development of transport infrastructure,ensuring adequate allocation of financial, and humanresources to infrastructure maintenance; 2) increasetransport sector efficiency, through sound market, andfiscal policies that support the rapid modernization ofMali's transport companies; and, 3) support crosssectoral initiatives, primarily in the areas of economiccompetitiveness, road safety, rural poverty alleviation, andin addition, to support HIV/AIDS prevention, and healthservices accessibility. Since transport costs represent asignificant share of the imported costs of intermediarygoods used in building up Mali's export capacity, theirreduction should have a positive impact on Mali'seconomic competitiveness. Accordingly, the already completedprivatization of the railway, the current attempt atprivatizing the airport system, as well as the proposedmeasures to increase the productivity of Mali's trucktransport, should all support economic competitiveness. TheGovernment however, should foresee that adequate regulatoryoversight is in place, to ensure that these productivitygains are passed on to transport customers. Regarding roadsafety in Mali, it is not only a financial dimension, butalso a health dimension, since it tends to challenge analready stretched health service. This would entail traininglaw enforcement agents, towards creating a nationwide roadaccident database. It is stressed that the development of arural road maintenance, and construction strategy by nolater than the end of 2004, be conducted, with part of thisstrategy's investment priorities defined, based onpoverty reduction criteria, such as increased accessibilityto health care, linkage to local markets, and otherpotential accessible services. The report emphasizes it isnow an established fact, that transport activities are animportant vector to HIV/AIDS dissemination, where activitieswithin the transport sector, designed to educate transportoperators about the disease, and its mode of transmissionwould, contribute to the overall fight against the spread ofthe epidemic.
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