Burkina Faso

In order to rein­force these links, on 27 Octo­ber 1999 the two coun­tries signed an ini­tial frame­work coop­er­a­tion agree­ment, suc­ceed­ed by the sign­ing of three Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­grammes (ICPs), the first in 2003.

In 2022, devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions were gov­erned by ICP III (2017−2022), signed on 21 Novem­ber 2016 by both gov­ern­ments for an ini­tial peri­od of 5 years. ICP III was extend­ed by one year in 2021, bring­ing its total dura­tion to 6 years. ICP III for­mal­ly end­ed on 31 Decem­ber 2022. The sign­ing and entry into force of the ICP IV, cov­er­ing the 2023 – 2027 peri­od, ini­tial­ly sched­uled for 7 Feb­ru­ary 2022, had to be sus­pend­ed due to the coup d’état on 24 Jan­u­ary 2022. Yet the population’s need for sup­port remains enor­mous. Thus, in close coor­di­na­tion with part­ners from Europe and Burk­i­na Faso, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued its com­mit­ment in 2022. Nei­ther the bud­get for NGO activ­i­ties nor the bud­get for mul­ti­lat­er­al and bilat­er­al pro­grammes was reduced. How­ev­er, Lux­em­bourg took the deci­sion that a num­ber of activ­i­ties would be imple­ment­ed direct­ly by LuxDev rather than through cen­tral funds man­aged by the Gov­ern­ment of Burk­i­na Faso.

In view of the out­come of the nego­ti­a­tions between the Burk­in­abe tran­si­tion­al author­i­ties and the Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ty of West African States (ECOW­AS), in par­tic­u­lar as regards the dura­tion of the 24-month tran­si­tion start­ing on 1 July 2022, in July 2022 Lux­em­bourg uni­lat­er­al­ly adopt­ed a tran­si­tion strat­e­gy cov­er­ing the years 2023 and 2024 in order to ensure the con­ti­nu­ity of Luxembourg’s sup­port for the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of Burk­i­na Faso, in the absence of an applic­a­ble ICP. The tran­si­tion strat­e­gy is based on the vision con­veyed by the ini­tial ICP IV and the nation­al devel­op­ment plans of the Burk­in­abe author­i­ties. For the 2023 – 2024 peri­od, a total finan­cial enve­lope (bilat­er­al, mul­ti­lat­er­al, NGOs, human­i­tar­i­an) of EUR 59 mil­lion is planned. For 2025, a finan­cial enve­lope of EUR 17 mil­lion is planned to allow a con­tin­u­a­tion of bilat­er­al inter­ven­tions pend­ing the final­i­sa­tion of a new ICP with the next demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly legit­imised Burk­in­abe government.

At the bilat­er­al lev­el, in 2022 the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to imple­ment the bilat­er­al pro­grammes in the ICP III, adapt­ing to the new insti­tu­tion­al and secu­ri­ty con­text. At the same time, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion extend­ed, until 2025, two bilat­er­al pro­grammes that had ini­tial­ly expired at the end of 2022. These were the ​“Pro­gramme to sup­port the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of for­est resources” and the ​“Pro­gramme to sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the edu­ca­tion and train­ing sec­tor plan”, with an addi­tion­al finan­cial enve­lope of EUR 34 mil­lion. With­in the frame­work of the pro­gramme in the envi­ron­men­tal sec­tor, the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of for­est resources will remain a pri­or­i­ty of the pro­gramme. In addi­tion, there will be an increased empha­sis on improv­ing envi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, the tran­si­tion of Burk­i­na Faso towards a green and inclu­sive econ­o­my, and sup­port for coor­di­na­tion and sec­toral envi­ron­men­tal lead­er­ship. With regard to the pro­gramme in the edu­ca­tion sec­tor, activ­i­ties will focus on edu­ca­tion in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions, tak­ing into account devel­op­ments in the secu­ri­ty con­text, the qual­i­ty of the edu­ca­tion sec­tor, increas­ing the role of envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion in the school con­text, as well as gov­er­nance of the edu­ca­tion and train­ing sector.

Final­ly, in 2022, 13 Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs were active in Burk­i­na Faso, and con­tin­ued to imple­ment their projects through their local part­ners, despite the polit­i­cal and secu­ri­ty crisis.

Fol­low­ing devel­op­ments in the secu­ri­ty and human­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion in Burk­i­na Faso, Lux­em­bourg is con­tin­u­ing to con­sid­er­ably increase its sup­port in the field of human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance. In 2022, Lux­em­bourg con­tributed EUR 7 671085.85 to emer­gency and ​“nexus” projects and pro­grammes. Thus, Lux­em­bourg sup­port­ed the World Food Pro­gramme, the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross, the Office of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees, the Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs and sev­er­al human­i­tar­i­an NGOs. In addi­tion, part­ner­ships were active­ly sought between the pro­grammes imple­ment­ed bilat­er­al­ly by the LuxDev agency and human­i­tar­i­an actors sup­port­ed by Luxembourg.