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BURKINA FASO: Project aims to improve conditions in poverty belt

OUAGADOUGOU, 24 June (IRIN) - A US $30-million poverty alleviation project aimed at improving agricultural output in areas near Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, was launched at the weekend by the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Burkinabe government.

Some 323 villages in the provinces of Kadiogo - which includes Ouagadougou - and neighbouring Bazega are covered by the project. Its aim is to increase the area cultivated by farmers in the two provinces by 32,500 ha and sink 33 wells. A 500,000-cubic metre dam currently under construction would also enable villagers to produce some 220 mt of cereals.

The ADB is to contribute 74 percent of the funds, while Burkina Faso's government will provide 16.5 percent. The project's beneficiaries are to contribute the remaining 9.5 percent.

Some 45 percent of Burkina Faso's 11 million people are poor, but the poverty rate is much higher among rural populations around Ouagadougou, 55 percent of whom live on less than one US dollar a day.

"It is a paradox that populations living on the outskirts of urban centres like Ouagadougou are the most destitute and the worst hit by poverty," the minister of state for agriculture, hydraulics and water resources, Salif Diallo, said.

These vulnerable populations, who are among the main beneficiaries targeted by the project, include residents of areas such as the Mossi Plateau near the capital, who have been hit by severe droughts, a source in Ouagadougou told IRIN on Monday.

In addition to the lack of water, such areas also suffer from a high rate of land degradation. As a result, the source said, many desperate, unemployed youths migrate to the capital, where they add an already high number of poor urban dwellers.
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