Burkina Faso
After 50 years of agricultural policy, Burkina Faso’s agriculture sector continues to face a number of challenges amid an ever faster evolving national and international environment. Rural development is still hampered by: unequal access to land, agricultural inputs and equipment; poor infrastructure and financing; inadequate agricultural extension; and natural resource degradation. These constraints limit private investment in the sector and hence its contribution to development.
Since the early 1990s, Burkina Faso has been engaged in wide-ranging reforms to strengthen the foundations of its socio-economic development. The country’s macroeconomic performance has been encouraging, with an average annual growth rate of 6% between 1995 and 2008. Unfortunately, this good performance has not led to a significant improvement of the living conditions of most of Burkina Faso’s 15 million inhabitants. So far the country has been unable to take full advantage of its participation in trade globalisation and the opening to foreign direct investment. The domestic economy is still inadequately supported by the secondary and tertiary sectors and suffers from a lack of diversification, which makes it structurally fragile and leaves its economic growth vulnerable to hazards (particularly climatic) that are inherent to the agricultural sector. This chapter provides an overview of the country’s economic and institutional development since the beginning of the economic liberalisation process in 1991 and suggests a number of reforms for improving investment performance of Burkina Faso.
Over the past ten years, Burkina Faso’s government has made great strides in creating a policy environment conducive to domestic and foreign investment, particularly in the agricultural sector. This chapter assesses Burkina Faso’s progress in developing a Policy Framework for Investment in Agriculture and describes: efforts to introduce a simple and transparent legislative and regulatory framework; reforms to improve public sector integrity and the quality of business regulation; initiatives to meet the challenge of access to land; efforts to consolidate regional integration, modernise infrastructure and the financial sector, and enhance human resource development. This chapter also identifies the key challenges faced in each of these areas and proposes concrete measures for addressing them. The chapter is structured around the elements and questions raised in the Policy Framework for Investment in Agriculture, in which each section is preceded by a question establishing the general framework for the review of the relevant policy area.
This chapter examines the evolution of agricultural investment flows and the impact of agricultural policy changes on such flows. Public spending in the agricultural sector averaged 11.43% of the national budget over the period 1995- 2008. The Maputo commitment made at the NEPAD summit to allocate at least 10% of the national budget to agriculture within five years appears to have been met. Nevertheless, the sector suffers from chronic under-investment, with the majority of available resources concentrated in the cotton sector. Private investment remains limited and difficult to quantify. This chapter highlights the impact of under-investment on the sector’s performance. The productivity per agricultural worker is at a virtual standstill and remains highly dependent on weather. Following a good performance in 2008 boosted by favourable weather conditions and a proactive policy to assist producers, the sector experienced a slowdown in 2009 with the cereal harvest declining by 10%, mainly owing to poor rainfall distribution and flooding in September 2009.
Despite being home to more than 60% of the world’s unused agricultural land, the African continent has suffered decades of under-investment in agriculture, resulting in stagnant productivity and lack of growth in the sector. On average, African countries allocate a mere 4% of their total budget to agriculture, compared with up to 14% in Asia. In addition, flows of foreign direct investment and official development assistance to the sector have been limited for many years.
Since the early 1990s, Burkina Faso has been engaged in a wide-ranging programme of reforms to strengthen the foundations of its socio-economic development. The primary sector (agriculture, livestock, forestry and fisheries) has been one of the main targets of this reform. The sector employs more than 86% of the working population and contributes at least 30% of the nation’s wealth. Burkina Faso has a major untapped potential for agro-pastoral development. However, the agricultural sector still faces a number of challenges constraining the country’s ability to fully grasp its agricultural development opportunities. Agricultural performance is hampered by difficult access to land, agricultural inputs and equipment, poor infrastructure and financing, inadequate agricultural extension, and natural resource degradation.
Les perspectives économiques en 2013 sont favorables et le taux de croissance prévisionnelle devrait se situer à 6.7 % voire au-delà contre 8.0 % en 2012. Le maintien du trend de croissance à 6 à 8 % serait imputable au dynamisme des secteurs primaire et tertiaire, qui constituent les secteurs moteurs de l’économie. Le secteur primaire, tiré par les sous-secteurs agriculture vivrière (11.0 % du PIB) et de rente (3.5 % du PIB) ainsi que l’élevage (11.3 % du PIB), constitue le socle de l’économie. Les sous-secteurs susmentionnés impriment leur rythme aux secteurs secondaire et tertiaire. Aussi, la forte dépendance du secteur primaire aux aléas climatiques, constitue une source de fragilité pour les fondamentaux de l’économie. La production d’or, principal pilier du secteur secondaire, a connu une forte décélération en 2012 (0.7 %) contre une forte croissance de 39.4 % en 2011. Cette situation est due au retard enregistré dans la mise en exploitation de la mine d’or de Bissa Gold. Cette tendance à la stabilisation de la production devrait se corriger à partir de 2013, avec la hausse attendue de la production d’au moins 10.4 %. Les pressions inflationnistes seront contenues en 2013 à 2.2 %, en dessous du seuil de convergence de l’Union économique et monétaire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (UEMAO), contre 3.6 % en 2012.
The economic outlook for 2013 is good, with provisional forecasts predicting growth of 6.7% or higher, compared with 8.0% in 2012. Growth will remain in the 6-8% range thanks to the vitality of the primary and tertiary sectors, which are the driving forces of the economy. The primary sector is the cornerstone of Burkina Faso’s economy, driven by food crops (11.0% of GDP), cash crops (3.5% of GDP) and livestock (11.3% of GDP). These three sub-sectors influence the secondary and tertiary sectors. The primary sector’s strong vulnerability to climatic vagaries makes the pillars of Burkina Faso’s economy fragile. Gold production – the main pillar of the secondary sector – experienced a sharp slowdown in 2012, with negative growth of 0.7% compared with strong growth of 39.4% in 2011. This downturn was caused by delays in opening the Bissa Gold mine. Growth should pick up again in 2013, with production expected to increase by at least 10.4%. Inflationary pressures will be contained at 2.2% in 2013 (down from 3.6% in 2012), and therefore below the convergence of the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa (UEMOA).
Les perspectives économiques pour 2012 sont favorables, avec une croissance attendue de 5.3 %, contre 5.1 % en 2011. Les pressions inflationnistes devraient en revanche augmenter, avec un taux d'inflation passant à 3.9% après 2.8 % en 2011. La croissance devrait être tirée par les industries extractives, l’égrenage de coton et l’agriculture. Toutefois, l’économie reste très vulnérable à plusieurs facteurs exogènes : un déficit pluviométrique à cause du climat défavorable, mais aussi le repli des cours de l’or ainsi que la forte augmentation du prix du pétrole sur les marchés mondiaux.
The economic outlook for 2012 is favourable, with growth of 5.3% expected, up from 5.1% in 2011. Inflationary pressure should increase, however, with the inflation rate rising from 2.8% in 2011 to 3.9%. Growth should be driven by the mining industries, cotton ginning and agriculture. The economy is vulnerable to several external factors however: a shortage of rainfall due to the unfavourable climate, the decline in the price of gold and a big increase in the price of oil on the international market.
Après 50 ans de politique agricole, l’agriculture burkinabè reste confrontée à plusieurs défis dans un contexte de mutation de plus en plus rapide de l’environnement national et international. Les performances de développement rural restent entravées par des difficultés liées à l’accès équitable à la terre, aux intrants et aux équipements, de valorisation des infrastructures et des financements, d’insuffisance d’encadrement du monde rural et de dégradation des ressources naturelles. Ces enjeux limitent l’investissement privé dans le secteur et, par conséquent, sa contribution au développement.