In Burkina Faso, the incidence of poverty affects 40% of the population, especially in rural areas, where more than 90% of people live below the poverty line.

The lack of the agricultural sector arises from the combination of various factors, such as common illiteracy, the poor promotion of local products, the use of agricultural techniques and inputs harmful for the ecosystem and the quality of production. Moreover, inefficient equipment and rudimentary tools in the transformation process, poor market access opportunities for small producers, weak computer skills and poor training opportunities for young people. Also limited impact of remittances to drive local development, poor packaging quality and lack of information about the origin of products, insufficient attention to healthy food consumption and, in general, quality food and last, but not least, interaction difficulties between city and rural area.

THE CHALLENGE OF GROWING TOGETHER
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The project, co-financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and Maria Enrica Foundation, aims to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of the rural population in Burkina Faso. It promotes the development of productive, innovative and business activities; enhances local and agro-ecological agricultural production and encourages the involvement of women, young people and migrants in Italy. The project also aims to promote quality products of small local producers who, often, find difficulties in reaching the market.

The provinces Boulgou (the main basin of burkinabè migrants in Italy) and Boulkiemdé will be the areas of development of rural areas’ business, which will see the use of innovative and technological solutions to improve production processes.

ACTIVITIES IN BURKINA FASO

Strengthen the leadership and employment opportunities of weakest groups and promote rural economy diversification:

• Ten literacy and accounting courses for 300 people lasting 6 months in 10 different villages. Each course will also include an oral French language training.
• Information campaigns about female business: two courses, lasting 3 days, involving 100 women about “Doing female business”. There will be two meetings with successful local entrepreneurs and four seminars involving 900 women to face the issues of female business in rural areas and to identify ways to strengthen women’s leadership in small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Support to credit and business. Forty small and medium-sized enterprises will be selected by ban and will benefit from training, guidance, and meetings with entrepreneurs and experts. Some of these will participate in the design of business plan and in management, administrative and promotional training sessions about product quality and access to credit, facilitating contacts with microfinance companies.
• Support funds for rural enterprises. The project makes available 154.000 euros to strengthen twenty small and medium-sized local enterprises.
• Strengthening of the National Federation of Rural Women of Burkina Faso (FENAFERB), through the organisation of meetings and forums among the members of the federation. The themes will be training and harmonisation of strategies, capacity building in roles and responsibilities, accounting management and monitoring.

Improving NTIC (New Information and Communication Technologies) skills of young people and their application in business:

• Development of two NTIC prototypes to enhance and improve processing and marketing processes.
• Development of four production protocols to improve and enhance quality.
• Initiation training for NTICs, using computer recovery equipment.

Marketing of an ethical line of burkinabé products in Ouagadougou market through a social enterprise and sustainable practices of Urban food system:

• Structuring and launching a line of natural, ethical and quality products, 100% Burkinabé (rice, honey, horticultural…).
• Opening distribution channels (supermarkets and outlets).
• Creation of a service package for manufacturers (communication, quality control, technical assistance…).
• Marketing campaign and awareness about consumption of local, healthy and nutritious products.
• Identification of good practices of sustainable city-country food systems (public purchasing system, distribution, markets).

ACTIVITIES IN ITALY

To encourage the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in migrants’ places of origin through the enhancement of their skills and relational and economic resources: 

• Investigations about relations between migrant associations and local associations in Burkina Faso and return and investment projects on the spot to improve knowledge of the Burkina Faso diaspora in Italy and reports transnational with communities in their country of origin to understand and facilitate their better involvement in project activities.
• Seven meetings in various Italian regions to raise awareness and involve the diaspora to support activities in Burkina Faso.
• Five awareness-raising meetings and formation of diaspora in Italy about financial education, savings, remittances and agroecology to stimulate a more profitable use of the money saved and sent back home and to introduce a new way of operating in the field of agriculture.
• 10 meetings with communities in Burkina Faso about savings, remittances and migration issues using the theatre-forum methodology (interactive theatre performances) to highlight opportunities for appropriate use of remittances and to face the risks and challenges of the migration experience.