Foreign trade
The volume of foreign trade more than doubled between 2010 and 2017. The trade balance is chronically deficient. Due to the low inflow of private capital, Burkina Faso closes the funding gap mainly through bilateral and multilateral grants and loans.
The main trading partner for exports is Switzerland by a large margin ahead of India and Singapore. Only then do the first African states follow with Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa. The main exports are gold, then cotton and other agricultural products. The most important import goods are petroleum products, medicines, cement, machines and vehicles, but also rice. For the imports the most important countries are China, Côte d’Ivoire, France and the USA.
National debt
According to philosophynearby, the national debt of Burkina Faso was estimated at $ 3.66 billion by the National Statistics Institute (INSD) for the end of 2019.
In April 2002 Burkina Faso had reached the ” Completion Point ” under the HIPC initiative. A comprehensive debt relief program thus became effective. In total, more than US $ 500 million in debt was canceled in the country. As a result of the agreement reached in June 2005 by the eight leading industrialized countries (G-8), Burkina Faso (together with 17 other HIPC countries for the time being) have all debts to the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank canceled. The debt reached a low of US $ 700 million in 2006 and had tripled again by 2011.
Development and development policy
Poverty Reduction, Millennium Development Goals, Post 2015 Development
Since the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, Burkina Faso’s Millennium Campaign (Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement OMD) has been running in close cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the donors of development aid. It consisted of halving poverty and hunger by 2015 and making visible advances in education. Other issues were equality and independence for women, health protection for mother and child, the fight against AIDS and environmental protection. According to the first progress report in 2003, Burkina Faso 2010
submitted a second. It highlighted encouraging progress in basic education, drinking water in urban settings, health care and the fight against AIDS. The United Nations praised the progress made in drinking water supplies at the September 2010 summit in New York. In the 2012 report, however, the results on gender equality and environmental protection fell short of the targets. The 2015 results were also negative for other goals. None of the eight Millennium Development Goals could be fully achieved. This applies above all to sanitation, the fight against monetary poverty and hunger and the reduction in maternal and child mortality.
The government had responded with “acceleration programs” that had been implemented since 2011 and linked the Millennium Development Goals with the goals of the poverty reduction programs (from PRSP to SRFP):
- Stratégie nationale d’accélération de l’atteinte des OMD (SNAO)
- Cadre d’accélération pour les OMD (CAO)
- Stratégie de croissance accélérée et de développement durable (SCADD)
A United Nations conference on sustainable development has drawn up ” Post-2015 Development Programs ” and, at its summit in New York on September 25, 2015, adopted the 2030 Agenda with its 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This is also based on the results of the Rio + 20 conference in 2012.
In Burkina Faso, particular emphasis is placed on water supply and sanitation as well as the fight against malnutrition.
German development cooperation in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is a cooperation point country for bilateral German development cooperation. In July 2017, Germany pledged 102.2 million euros in bilateral development cooperation. An interim commitment of 38 million euros was made in 2018. The next government negotiations were originally planned for 2020.
With its Financial Cooperation (FC), the BMZ promotes investments through cheap loans, equity capital or grants that do not have to be repaid. Organization responsible for Financial Cooperation, the KfW Ent wick-lung-bank.
The Technical Cooperation (TC) provides advice, supplies a limited amount of material goods, creates systems, studies and reports. The TC projects are mainly carried out on behalf of BMZ by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), which has been responsible for the activities of the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the German Development Service (DED) and International Training and Development since the beginning of 2011 (InWEnt) united. Technical cooperation always takes place as a direct service that does not have to be reimbursed by the recipient country.
Three main areas of cooperation were agreed with the government of Burkina Faso. They complement the engagement of other donors in Burkina Faso:
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Decentralization and community development
- Water and sanitation
In other areas, Germany is committed to promoting human rights, especially women’s rights, improving the sexual health of young people in particular, fighting HIV / AIDS and fighting child labor. Several projects to promote democracy and civil society are being carried out, particularly in the areas of media, human rights and youth promotion. A transnational development partnership with the private sector is being carried out.
