Burkina Faso

Overview

Climate change

Around 80 per cent of the population of Burkina Faso rely on farming for both food and income. However, climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow and harvest enough crops. Malnutrition is a constant challenge, particularly for children under five years old.

Education and child labour

Many schools are struggling with staff shortages, overcrowded classes, and a lack of resources. Increasing numbers of children are dropping out of school and being forced into child labour in dangerous conditions in the gold mining industry.

Clean water

Access to clean drinking water remains limited across the country. As a result, waterborne diseases are common and child mortality is high.

Our work in Burkina Faso

Tearfund has been working in Burkina Faso since the 1970s. We are currently focusing on supporting those most vulnerable to climate change. We are doing this by building water reserves for livestock farming, distributing improved seeds to farmers, and restoring eroded land.

Church and community transformation

Tearfund works through a number of partner organisations in Burkina Faso to implement the church and community transformation (CCT) process among local churches and Bible colleges.

This process helps unlock people’s God-given potential – empowering communities to lift themselves out of poverty through their own resourcefulness. We also equip church leaders to challenge attitudes and behaviours which perpetuate corruption and injustice and sexual and gender-based violence.

Tearfund’s aim is to enable 250,000 people in Burkina Faso to lift themselves out of poverty by the end of 2022. It’s a bold target and we plan to achieve it by working alongside our local partners and with 1,600 local churches in the country.

We’ve currently helped to improve the living conditions of over 31,000 vulnerable households by improving access to education, literacy programmes, clean water and sanitation facilities.

Peacebuilding

Since 2018, Burkina Faso has faced increasing levels of violence and insecurity in the country. Attacks by armed groups have been almost constant, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

In order to reduce the impact of violence and to reinforce peaceful co-existence among communities, Tearfund and our partners embarked on supporting peacebuilding activities in conflict-affected communities. So far, over 800 people have been trained in peacebuilding and conflict management, with some individuals also being trained in providing emotional support to those affected by conflict.