In December 2019 VERTIC’s National Implementation Measures team completed their work alongside the International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA) and the Malian Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity (MABB) on a project funded by Global Affairs Canada to strengthen biosafety and biosecurity in Mali.

The project’s goals included developing new biosafety and biosecurity legislation, creating a national agency for biorisk management and establishing a national biorisk management standard. With Mali’s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs’s endorsement, a national working group gathering representatives from relevant governments and non-governmental organisations was tasked with developing a draft law on biosafety and biosecurity, a draft law and decree on the establishment of a national agency for biosafety and biosecurity and a draft biosafety and biosecurity standard.

The NIM team and IFBA provided input to the draft texts during a workshop held in Casablanca in October 2018 and through ongoing remote assistance until the end of the project.

The draft laws and decrees are now with the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs for governmental and parliamentary review, approval and adoption, while the standard is with Mali’s Agency for normalization and quality promotion.