By the end of 2019, Mali’s population stood at more than 20 million inhabitants (four times more than 59 years previously).

The Tuareg (Tamazight speakers), the Moors (Arabic speakers) and, in riverine areas, the Songhay and Peuls (Fulani) are the main communities that inhabit the vast northern space that accounts for two-thirds of Mali. Their political alliances and their conflicts have shaped the history of a region in which there has been an interdependence between nomadic and settled populations, who have participated in vast economic, cultural and social exchange networks across the Sahara.

The Tuareg live in the five administrative regions of northern Mali (Kidal, Timbuktu, Gao, Taoudenit and Menaka), known as Azawad by the autonomy movements. They also have a presence in the border areas of other states (Niger, Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso).

In 1960, when Mali was created, official figures put the Tuareg at more than 10% of the country’s population. Today, despite no reliable data, official discourse around the conflicts that have pitted the Tuareg against the Malian state puts them at a mere 3% of the global population, a figure that is scarcely credible.

Mali’s official language is French but cultural diversity is recognised in its constitution. For its part, the National Agreement, a peace accord signed with the armed Tuareg fronts in 1992, recognised the specific nature of the regions inhabited by the Tuareg although these provisions were never concretely implemented. Mali voted in favour of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007. The Malian state does not, however, recognise the existence of “Indigenous Peoples”, as defined by the UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, on its territory.