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Burkina Faso |
DEVELOPMENT
The optimism expressed by the IMF seems to clash with the reality of daily
life:
growth is meaningless if it is not transformed into well-being for
the people
The roof of the house is made of straw and the floor of beaten earth. The openings that serve as windows have neither panes of glass, nor shutters. During the rainy season, the people who sleep in this hut have no protection against bad weather. Nor do they have any electricity, drinking water or even a daily bowlful of “tô” (a local maize flour or sorghum based dish). Such is the reality of poverty in Burkina Faso, despite the improvement in the growth rate during the last few years. How can this evil be defeated?
At the beginning of September, senior international financiers reassured the people of Burkina Faso: the country is still top of the IMF class. The economy has the green light and a growth-rate better than 6% can be seen on the horizon. At any rate, this was the understanding of the IMF mission that took place in Burkina during September 2001. The IMF representatives had the task of making a financial and economic x-ray examination of the country. The report was certainly rather encouraging, allowing the country to benefit from the «Highly Indebted Poor Countries» (HIPC) programme, with further external debt relief of 50 billion francs CFA. We can only rejoice.
But where does this optimism, that seems at such odds with daily life, come from? Ironically, by shere good luck, these effusions from the IMF appeared at the same time as the 2001 report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Sustainable Human Development (SHD) was published. This new concept takes into account macro-economic aggregates, and also includes basic social services such as health, ed-ucation, access to drinking water, etc. On this basis, Burkina — despite its much-hyped 5 or 6% growth rate — is no longer among the leaders in the IMF classification, but is at the bottom of the UNDP scale, where it is 159th out of 172.
It is true that SHD does not include peace, stability, security and other equally important factors, which have allowed Burkina to win some points and to move up a notch on the performance scale. Despite its structural poverty, it is certainly a better place to live than some affluent or moderately wealthy countries. All the same, this situation is symptomatic of the gap between the cold figures of the technocrats, and the existential pain of the citizen, since growth has no meaning if it is not transformed into well-being for the people.
Poverty in figures
In Burkina, the monetary threshold for poverty, that is the minimum amount on which a person can meet basic needs, was set in 1992 at 72,690 CFA francs and 50,000 CFA francs (1 CFA franc = 0.15 Euro) per person per year in the urban and rural environment respectively, and 50,000 CFA francs and 35,000 CFA francs for extreme poverty. This means that almost two-thirds (63%) of the people of Burkina Faso live below the poverty line and just over a third (34%) live in extreme poverty.
The position of the poor varies, depending on the environment, type and socio-professional category. The poverty index in the countryside is 66%, while in the towns it is 52%. In the countryside, households least affected by poverty, are those where the head of the household is employed, has a small business or is retired. Farmers, who form 88% of the rural population, have a poverty index of 68%. The groups most affected in this area are however those led by a woman at home or by an unemployed person, where the poverty index is as high as 75%. The size of the household and the sex of the individual concerned, are also factors that increase the risk of poverty, both in the countryside and in the town.
Women, especially in rural areas, have a higher chance of being poor than do men. Men are twice as likely to be literate as women are (8.5% compared to 4.6%), and urban populations are six times more literate than rural populations (24.7% compared to 3.3%). The vulnerability of households led by a woman, is partly caused by her poor level of education, and also by the problems she faces trying to find work in an area where tradition still prevails. These households, especially in the country, are the poorest. Finally, when they do work, women are usually in the most precarious forms of employment.
The overall level of school attendance is 32.2%, but this figure hides significant disparities, depending on area and sex. First of all, it is 74.8% in urban areas, but only 23.9% in the rural areas. Then, 41% of boys attend school, but only 23% of girls. As for health, there was a deficit in 1998, with health cover at 42%, and a very high infant mortality rate (274 per thousand). Moreover, 123 children in every thousand die before the age of one year, and 172 before the age of 5. Children also suffer from malnutrition: 41% live with chronic malnutrition and 20% with serious chronic malnutrition
Overall, it may be seen that all surveys show Burkina to be one of the poorest countries in the world, whatever indicators are used. Most of the people do not have enough food to satisfy their hunger. Poverty is widespread, deep-rooted and permanent.
Growth or combating poverty?
In the face of such poverty, should the government seek economic growth, or concentrate on the fight against poverty? This is a pointless debate, since experience shows that, generally speaking, growth and the reduction in poverty go hand-in-hand. The question to ask, therefore, is what types of policies would foster both of these at once?
Several recent studies by the government have identified the main obstacles to balanced growth. People are insufficiently prepared to tackle challenges presented by this day and age — thus contributing to a weakness in productivity, a very high unemployment rate and inadequate infrastructures for economic development. This results in high production costs, an economy remaining hidebound in tradition and shut in on itself.
Economic growth is certainly essential to raise the general income levels and the well-being of Burkina’s people, but it is not enough to combat poverty and inequality. Within an economic policy that seeks to be fair and effective across the widest possible spread of the population, equity must be an essential aim.
It’s not easy to undertake a study of poverty, because of the complex interrelatedness of economic, political, psychological, cultural and social aspects of this phenomenon. The causes and the scale of poverty are also inseparable from the development of the dominant global economy: poverty can no longer be seen as a pathological phenomenon — it has become functional. This also leads to the conclusion that, in the present state of globalised economies, a study into poverty and inequality in African countries can no longer remain outside the general context of relations between developed and developing countries.
As regards Burkina Faso, poverty here is a long-standing, structural phenomenon. Burkina Faso is a land-locked country, with poor physical and natural resources. The unfavourable rainfall seriously affects agriculture, which is the main activity of the labour force. Moreover, poor investment choices in the public sector, misappropriation of public funds, together with the perverse effects of structural adjustment programmes and the devaluation of the CFA franc, has increased poverty in a country which was already classed as one of the poorest in the world. For this reason, Burkina’s authorities decided to define poverty not just as an economic challenge, but also as the cumulation of urgent social and political factors.
The PRSP — a vital, consensus-driven document
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is a vital document, produced by consensus, with considerable involvement from all parties concerned, to find a sustainable way of fighting poverty.
Aware nonetheless of the limited resources available, and concerned to be realistic in its approach to the problems, the government put forward its development priorities for the fight against poverty. The first task is to deal with the social deficit, the stability of the food supply, and access to drinking water for the poor. In the next few years, faster economic growth should improve the effect and efficiency of public policies, focusing initially on social sectors, and relying on rational management of natural resources and implementation of better coordination for public support for development.
Achieving the targets in the fight against poverty involves several programmes organised under four strategic headings, with costed priority actions.
This is an ambitious programme. Does Burkina Faso have the resources for it? There’s no answer to this question at the moment. What is certain, is that the country has assets favourable to this development programme. First of all, there is the HIPC relief programme. Poverty is an essentially rural phenomenon in Burkina Faso, so the essential resources from the initiative will be allocated to the social sectors (basic education and health) and the development of the rural areas (agriculture, animal resources, water resources, rural roads). Just as the PRSP was studied and adopted by the Council of the World Bank in June 2000, implementing this basic initiative allowed the country effectively to mobilise a package of 7,250 million CFA francs, at the end of 2000, to fund the work of fighting against poverty in the social sectors mentioned.
Reducing poverty is certainly a colossal challenge. But it is possible to make rapid progress as long as there is the political will and a true spirit of partnership between governments, civil society and the private sector.
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