Burkina Faso is a poor landlocked country of over 13 million inhabitants in West Africa. It has limited natural resources and rainfall, an economy that is strongly dependent on cotton exports, and a vulnerability to natural disasters and regional instability. The country has been forced to cope with a host of challenges, including locust infestations, outbreaks of meningitis, the spread of HIV/AIDS; civil conflict in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire and falling export prices; and surging fuel costs. Burkina Faso ranks 174 of 177 countries on the Human Development Index and more than 45 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Food insecurity is very high, with chronic malnutrition reaching 39 percent and acute malnutrition 19 percent.
Like other countries in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso was confronted with a food crisis in 2005 because of the 2004 drought and locust invasion. The situation was worsened because of the low and scarce rainfall in 2004 and 2005. In 2006, the prevalence of malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency reached precarious levels amongst the population of Burkina Faso.
In August 2006, Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF) and World Food Programme (WFP) conducted a nutrition survey in the Sahel and eastern regions of Burkina Faso, which confirmed the serious nutritional situation. Malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency were diagnosed as the direct causes of high levels of low birth weight babies in the country, and while statistics demonstrate that infant mortality doubles among children with low-birth weight, almost two out of ten children die before the age of five in Burkina Faso. This translates into more than 110,000 deaths per year of children under five years of age.
Although a poor nutrition situation characterized all regions of Burkina Faso, the mission identified five regions (Sahel, the North, the Central-North, the East, and South-West) where the problem was particularly acute. In this context, UNICEF, WFP, WHO and FAO submitted two different projects for funding consideration, all under the rapid response windows of the CERF Secretariat. The global request included two life-saving projects in the sectors of nutrition and agriculture: A joint WFP/ UNICEF/WHO project: “Preventing and Mitigating Acute Malnutrition impact among Young children and Their Mothers including Pregnant Women”, and A FAO project: “Urgent restoration of agricultural production capabilities of the vulnerable households in Burkina Faso.”
For more information, click here to download the full 2006 CERF report for Burkina Faso.
[Last Update: 21 August 2007]
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