Our Burkina Faso office

Cooperation between Luxembourg and Burkina Faso was formalised in 1999 with the signing of a general cooperation agreement. Several Indicative Cooperation Programmes (ICPs) have followed, culminating in a third programme (ICP III) in 2017. Initially scheduled to run until 2021, with an initial bilateral budget of EUR 47.3 million, ICP III focused on the sustainable management of natural resources, education, technical and vocational education and training, and new information and communication technologies.

With the advent of a period of political transition and increasing insecurity, it was not possible to envisage signing a new ICP in 2022. As a result, a transition strategy for Luxembourg's development cooperation with Burkina Faso was agreed between the two countries, covering the years 2023 and 2024, with a technical extension for the year 2025. This extension brings the ICP III envelope to EUR 105 million.

ICP III's main activities are centred on the BKF/023 programme to support sustainable management of forestry resources, the BKF/025 programme to support implementation of the Education and Training Sector Plan, and the BKF/026 programme to support the sectoral policy for technical and vocational education and training. These programmes place Burkina Faso's partners at the heart of the action and support them through a number of important support components, in line with national planning, programming, implementation and monitoring-evaluation mechanisms.

The environment programme is firmly committed to supporting the development of a green economy and the creation of green jobs. The education programme enables education in emergency situations to meet the needs of children, particularly internally displaced children. The vocational training programme aims to increase the range and quality of green jobs with the private sector. All these development initiatives contribute to achieving the results set out in the Stabilisation and Development Action Plan (PA-SD) and the country's sectoral guidelines.

Thanks to the momentum generated by the preparation of a new ICP and the adoption of a transition strategy, the interventions have been adapted, with systematic use of direct financing for funds implemented from 2023 onwards, in full consultation with the partner institutions and with attention paid to the impact on the population, particularly young women and men.

Other interventions should also be noted, in particular:

• the BKF/024 project for the recovery of degraded land in pastoral areas, which ended in June 2023 and whose key actions have been taken over by the BKF/023 programme;
• the BKF/027 project, which supports Burkina Faso's cadastre in the municipalities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso;
• and the BKF/801 project, funded by the European Union, which is involved in research and innovation for productive, resilient and healthy agropastoral systems in West Africa.

At the crossroads of the three key interventions of CIP III and in the spirit of "Team Europe", a joint initiative undertaken with Luxembourg is being prepared to provide access to green and sustainable employment for young people in three key regions of Burkina Faso.