This article offers a political economy perspective on the Malian crisis with a focus on aid and donor practices. The argument is two-fold. On the one hand, aid consolidated a regime that grew increasingly discredited, so that aid and donors – voluntarily or otherwise – contributed to create the pre-2012 context of fragility. On the other hand, this structural gap has created a state of affairs that provided some impulse and support to putschists and insurgent groups. It explores four channels through which this has happened in practice. External funding agencies have sponsored what was perceived as President Amadou Toumani Touré's ‘mismanagement’ of the situation in the north and the degradation of governance. In addition, donors exerted weak control over policies and ignored signals of growing popular dissatisfaction with ATT. Finally, when they tried to put pressure on governments, donors chose highly controversial issues and have enacted unpopular conditionalities, which have had destabilising effects.

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