This fact sheet provides a snapshot of conclusions from a case study in Mali of the RESOLVE Network’s Community-Based Armed Groups (CBAGs) Research Initiative. It untangles the legitimacy of armed groups, mobilizing factors, and the multi-level impact of violence implicating CBAGs, further exploring the relations amongst different actors, including the state, armed groups, and communities. The proliferation of community-based armed groups (CBAGs) in Mali’s Mopti and Ségou Regions has contributed to transforming Central Mali into a regional epicenter of conflict since 2016. Due to the lack of adequate presence of the state, certain vulnerable, conflict-affected communities resorted to embracing non-state armed groups as security umbrellas in the context of inter-communal violence. These local conflicts are the result of long-standing issues over increasing pressure on natural resources, climate shocks, competing economic lifestyles, nepotistic and exclusionary resource management practices, and the shifting representations of a segregated, historically constructed sense of ethnic identities in the region. To learn more about the research methodology and findings, please refer to this fact sheet’s companion RESOLVE Research Report by Rida Lyammouri: Central Mali: Armed Community Mobilization in Crisis.