Burkina Faso

Situation

Burkina Faso has some of the lowest human development statistics in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and income.*

In Burkina Faso the average amount of schooling is just over one year and close to 50 percent of Burkina Faso’s population is living on less than $1.25 a day. About 90 percent of Burkina Faso’s 18 million inhabitants are engaged in subsistence agriculture, but many lack access to modern farming techniques. Droughts, increasing desertification and other affects of climate change have severely impacted agricultural activities and the economy.

This land-locked country is located in Western Africa, bordered by Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali and receives on average just 31 inches of rain annually. Burkina Faso gained indpendence from France in 1960, and following a period of unrest has had a fragile democracy under President Blaise Compoare.

Successes 2017

Thanks to your support in our epicenter strategy and our microfinance program we have already achieved a lot in Burkina Faso!

• In 2017, 890 members of the four Epicenter communities (469 women and 421 men) were trained in the microfinance program.
• Of these, 512 people (379 women and 133 men) attended additional income-generating activities.
• The focus of training in the microfinance programme in the first half of the year was the concept of microcredit, while in the second half of the year the focus was on the role of bank members and the loan repayment process.
• In addition, the heads of the microfinance programme benefited from further training on various topics such as social accounting, management of social benefits, professional regulations, financial services via mobile phones and the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI), an instrument for measuring the level of poverty of the clientele.
• The community members were taught how to make soaps and how to breed cattle.
• 1,490 community members benefited from loans. Most of the loans are invested in agricultural activities and small businesses. For example, borrowers buy agricultural equipment or small livestock such as chickens to generate additional income.
• The microfinance programme in Burkina Faso received 164`333 CHF in the first year of the partnership investment.

Travel reports

THP sites in Burkina Faso