By Panagrimedia Correspondent, October 12, 2023, Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Dr Aboubakar Nacanabo, Minister of Economy, Finance and Foresight of Burkina Faso, today signed a new financing agreement to further strengthen the resilience of small-scale Burkinabe agro-producers to climate change and other shocks. The new funding comes at an important time: Burkina agriculture is facing structural challenges, and the country is among the most vulnerable to chronic effects of climate change and has a low capacity for adaptation.
This agreement forms the basis for a €107 million investment in the Programme to Strengthen Smallholder Resilience to Climate Change and other shocks (RESI-2P in French).
The project aims to strengthen the resilience of 109,000 rural people over eight years. Among the participants, 45 per cent are women and 50 per cent are young people. In addition, the project will indirectly impact more than 208,000 small-scale farmers, including around 93,000 women, 104,000 young people, 13,000 internally displaced people and close to 1,100 people with disabilities. It will cover the North and the Center-West regions, with a target production area of 30,802 hectares.
“With the rapidly worsening consequences of climate change, strengthening the resilience of small-scale farmers is crucial for Burkina Faso” said Ann Turinayo, IFAD Country Director of Burkina Faso. “All farmers in the country are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as drought, flooding, erratic rainfall distribution, among others. Supporting the adaptation of these farmers and ensuring that there are measures to mitigate the effects of climate change will be the focus of the RESI-2P programme.”
RESI-2P project interventions aim to develop productivity and production and increase market access. Investments are structured into two components with direct impacts on participants, namely strengthening the resilience of their production systems and facilitating market access.
The RESI-2P capitalizes on the achievements and lessons learned from the previous projects, which have revealed the importance of resilience in improving the livelihoods of rural poor. It comes after the completion of the participatory management of natural resources and rural development project in the North, Center-North and East (known as Neer-Tamba, 2014-2023) which successfully increased the resilience of poor rural populations through participatory and sustainable management of natural resources.
Burkina Faso is a low-income Sahel country, vulnerable to climate change and limited in natural resources. Its economy and development hinge on agriculture, which represents 25 per cent of GDP and employs more than 63.2 per cent of the active population (RGPH, 2019). The national economy experienced a marked improvement between 2016 and 2019 with an average growth of 6.2 per cent before dropping to 2.5 per cent in 2020, due to the persistence of terrorist attacks and the Covid-19 pandemic.
From 1977 to date, IFAD has participated in the financing of 17 rural development programmes and projects in Burkina Faso, investing US$ 393.95 million. These projects and programmes have directly benefited 623,200 rural households.
