Mali - Infrastructure, power, and communications

Mali's large geographical area and low income status makes maintenance of its infrastructure a major challenge. For an area of 1.24 million square kilometers (480,000 square miles), the country has a total 15,100 kilometers (9,383 miles) of roads of which only 1,827 kilometers (1,135 miles) are paved. About 729 kilometers (453 miles) of meter-gauge railway link Bamako to Senegal's railway through Kayes. Nearly 1,815 kilometers (1,127 miles) of waterways are navigable. In 1998, there were 28 airports, 6 of which had paved runways. The 1 major port is at Koulikoro on the river Niger.

Communications
Country	Newspapers	Radios	TV Sets a	Cable subscribers a	Mobile Phones a	Fax Machines a	Personal Computers a	Internet Hosts b	Internet Users b
	1996	1997	1998	1998	1998	1998	1998	1999	1999
Mali	1	54	12	0.0	0	N/A	0.7	0.01	10
United States	215	2,146	847	244.3	256	78.4	458.6	1,508.77	74,100
Nigeria	24	223	66	N/A	0	N/A	5.7	0.00	100
Mauritania	0	151	91	N/A	0	1.7	5.5	0.00	13
a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999 and are per 1,000 people.
b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people.
SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000.

In 1998, approximately 62 percent of the country's electricity was obtained from hydro-sources while the remaining 38 percent was from fossil fuel with total production of about 310 million kilowatts hours (kWh). All the power generated was for domestic consumption, and none was imported.

The domestic telephone system is poor but improving. The domestic network consists of microwave radio relays, land-lines, and radio telephone communications stations. Expansion of the microwave radio relay is in progress. There are 2 Intelsat satellite earth stations for international communication. In 1995, there was no mobile cellular phone system in the country, while there were only 17,000 land lines. In 1998, there were 7 shortwave, 14 FM and 1 AM radio broadcast stations. There was also 1 television broadcast station with 2 repeater stations in the country. There was only 1 Internet service provider in 1999.