Rob:  Located in western Africa, the country of Mali is in many ways a study of success.  Culturally diverse, Mali is rising above ancient tribal tensions that still plague much of the continent.  And while a Muslim country, Mali is a fully functioning democracy that prides itself on tolerance.  Yet Mali is also very, very poor.  And it’s this combination of those factors that took a handful of journalists and media professionals into West Africa to work with their counterparts, more on that a little later, but first, a look into a country whose challenges are only equaled by its optimism.
Rob:  It’s the rhythm of an industry that goes back centuries, workers beating the wrinkles out of traditional African cloth, one of the few jobs in this village just outside the Mali capitol.  Here, entire families work together, dyeing the fabric in a chemical stew that too often finds its way into the local water supply.
Malian:  In each compound, you can see a traditional well, but this water may not be healthy.
Rob:  A necessary risk to bring travelers and their currency to town.
Asaman Ala Sanmega:  Let me tell you that girls, even boys, in this kind of area face many challenges, social challenges.  So they are vulnerable to HIV, prostitution, drugs, robbery; because you can see, every day’s life is a struggle.  They struggle to survive.
Rob:  Asaman Ala Sanmega knows something about poverty.  A university trained English teacher, Asaman can make more money showing tourists the sights of his native land; a great job in Mali, considering 75% of Africans under the age of 30 are un-employed.
Ken Kierstead:  Because Mali is a country that the statistics tell us is surviving on a family income of $2 a day or less, there is a tremendous amount of poverty, which means malnutrition factors into the situation as well.
Rob:  The head of a relief organization, Ken Kierstead has worked in West Africa for decades.
Kierstead:  In Africa, the biggest challenge, I think one can take, is a continent as opposed to each individual country.  It’s bringing or helping to encourage the people to reach a standard of life where they can take care of basic, basic things such as food, health care, nutrition, proper education, and a social environment that is nurturing, as opposed to one that is in conflict all the time.
Rob:  A former French colony, Mali gained its independence in 1960, only to suffer under dictatorship until a military coup in 1991, that led to free elections,  creating a democracy in an area surrounded by unrest, civil war, and fundamentalism.
Terence  McCulley:  Mali really is a focus country for the United States.  It’s a place where democracy is functioning.
Rob:  Terance McCulley is U S ambassador to Mali.
McCulley:  We look at Mali as a place that has underlying stability, that has had social peace and that has moved forward in a very steady and successful way in consolidating democratic institutions.
Rob:  Like freedom of the press, Mali’s constitution protects the right of free speech.  Small independent newspapers can be found all across the capitol city of Bamako, many of them critical of the government.
McCulley:  I’ve been in Africa for about 22 years now, and the Malian media is among the freest that I’ve seen.  The last two years Freedom House is rated at number one in Sub Saharan Africa.  So I think the print media, in particular, is very lively, sometimes it’s perhaps not as professional as we would like, but they certainly get the story out, and they engage in a very vigorous debate including criticism of the government of the day, which I think is healthy in a democratic environment.
Rob:  Despite such social progress, Mali remains the third poorest nation in the world.  With few natural resources, most in the countryside depend on subsistence agriculture, a difficult livelihood, even in areas not covered by the Sahara Desert.  In the city, life is also hard.  Streets are crowded with people dressed in a disarray of secondhand western clothes, trying to earn a living any way they can.
Rob:  Poverty in the rural areas forces many to the capitol of Bamako.  Here on the streets, an open window is an open invitation for pleading faces looking to sell something.
Rob:  Over the next five years, the U S will invest close to a half-a-billion dollars in Mali, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a program designed to reduce poverty through economic growth, with more than half of the money to increase irrigated acreage.
SOT:  There is no more important issue for Mali than agriculture.  It’s an economy which is largely, I think 90% agriculture based.  It’s a country which, if it's going to develop economically, it needs to develop its agriculture sector.
Rob:  And its health care sector.  With cinder blocks for goals, children play soccer on a dust-covered field, seemingly the picture of health.  Yet, extreme poverty is a breeding ground for disease.  And something as ordinary as a mosquito bite can often kill.
Kierstead:  It’s hard to imagine that any West African doesn't have malaria, unless there is some indigenous example that we aren't aware of.  But most people suffer through episodes of malaria, and that is also terribly dangerous to young children, pregnant women, older people.
Ebrak Ima Babar:  From June to October, the transmission of malaria is very high.
Rob:  Working inside a lab partially funded by western aid, Ebrak Ima Babar looks for ways to combat a disease that’s kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds, yet is preventable with something as simple as a bed net treated with insecticide.
Ebrak Ima Babar:  Bed netting is important to provide individual protection against mosquitoes biting.  
Rob:  A simple solution that costs less than $2 a piece, yet remains financially out of reach for many, a few pennies that costs this country dearly.
Sickness makes you lethargic.  Sickness doesn't allow the people to work properly, and it transfers through the whole culture of this society.
Rob:  Which is why in 2005 President Bush pledged 1.2 billion dollars to fight malaria in the 15 countries hit hardest by the disease.
Rob:  And while the U S may well be the largest provider of foreign aid, we certainly aren’t the alone in trying to make inroads here.
Rob:  An Islamic nation, Mali has long been a meeting place of cultures, linking Sub Saharan Africa, with the Arab influenced countries of the desert.
McCulley:  While Mali is stable, you have a vast ungoverned space in the north, which has been a space where all kinds of bad guys have been operating, if you will, for hundreds of years.  You’ve got cigarette smugglers.  You have arms traffickers.  You have human traffickers.  And in recent years, there has been a terrorist group which used to be called the G-S-P-C, this alphas group for preaching in combat, which in recent days has re branded itself as Al Qaeda in the Isalmic Magrheb, which has taken refuge in the north, and is using it as a base of training and operations.
Rob:  And while Mali has been spared the suicide bombings that have torn through neighboring countries, many fear a violent form of Islamism could spread here among the poorest of the poor.
Asaman Al Sanmega:  In Africa, we used to say, an empty stomach doesn't have a brain.  So they do not have a choice.  Sometimes religious sects, whether it’s Christian or Muslim sects, tries to interfere, or to get in these people.  As you can see, this small girl, she doesn’t know what is religion, but they try to cultivate in her this culture, because she has no choice.
Rob:  Making Mali’s path to economic success, surprisingly linked to our own national security.
Rob:  To fully appreciate what’s at stake in Mali, you just need to look at its neighbors.  To its south, four separate countries are only now recovering from a decade of civil war and ethnic cleansing that created hundreds of thousands of refugees.  While to its north, in Algeria, an Islamic insurgency, along with harsh state oppression, is being blamed for the deaths of over 150,000 people.