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Current Requirements (US$)$934.6 million
Crisis overview and projections
Burkina Faso continues to experience the worst humanitarian crisis in its history, with an estimated 10% of the national population (more than 2 million people) internally displaced due to violence and insecurity. Over half a million people have been newly displaced in the first nine months of the year, further overstretching the already insufficient capacity of basic social services in major IDP reception areas. The food and nutritional security of IDP and non-displaced people has been significantly constrained by limited access to productive activities and functioning markets, basic social and protection services. In 2024, the humanitarian community estimates that 6.3 million people will need humanitarian assistance across the country’s 13 regions, up 35 per cent in comparison to 2023.
Among those most affected are the approximately 1.2 million people in some 40 population centres across seven regions cut off from the rest of the country. They are dependent on irregular resupply by commercial convoys moving under military escort, and humanitarian cargo flights that are more regular but limited in capacity. Humanitarian action in Burkina Faso thus relies heavily on helicopter transport for passengers and cargo, which cost 12 to 50 times more than overland transport. Moreover, humanitarian efforts are concentrated within the narrow circumference of these population centres, rarely reaching surrounding rural areas with any scale of assistance.
Sougrinooma Site, Kaya, Centre-Nord Region, Burkina Faso
A girl lays out clothes at the site where she lives with her parents.
OCHA/Bénédicte Bama ToéThe civilian population of Burkina Faso is suffering from the consequences of being the world’s most neglected crisis, without sufficient attention and funding from the international community. The humanitarian situation is dire and there are serious protection concerns, as well as security incidents affecting civilians which went up by 60% to 4,022 in the first three quarters of 2023 compared to the previous year.
Between January and September 2023, the humanitarian community reached some 2.3 million people with assistance (nearly three quarters of the annual target), of which 400,000 (17 per cent) in areas not originally targeted by humanitarian actors under the HRP. By the end of October 2023, the 2023 HRP had received just 33 per cent of the US$ 877 million requested (US$290 million).
Ouahigouya, Nord Region, Burkina Faso
Displaced women learn soap-making skills
OCHA/Bénédicte Bama ToéResponse priorities in 2024
In 2024, humanitarian partners will strictly prioritize their actions, aiming to provide life-saving assistance and protection services to 3.8 million people, sustaining rapid response for newly-displaced persons and facilitating the most vulnerable people’s access to basic services and food security support. At the same time, humanitarian and targeted development investments in resilience-building will be made for both displaced and non-displaced communities.
This approach presumes that development partners will sustain and, through a similarly strict targeting, reinforce access to basic services and livelihoods for vulnerable people in the more accessible areas of the country, as outlined in the UN Interim Development Plan (UNIDAP) for Burkina Faso. This collaborative approach, across the humanitarian-development-peace collaboration, is essential to reduce humanitarian needs and support efforts to identify solutions for crisis-affected people, particularly in view of the increasingly urbanised nature of displacement in the country, which has seen 70 per cent of newly displaced people in 2023 arriving in 10 population centres – all of which are in regional or provincial capitals.
Localization at the core of the humanitarian response
The increasing complexities associated with responding to the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso highlight the paramount importance of ensuring local leadership and capacity for humanitarian action. As part of the 2023 standard allocation for Burkina Faso from the Regional Humanitarian Fund for West and Central Africa, the national NGO, Tin Tua Association, has been funded to advance the regional collaboration on localisation with Project HOPE. This project aims to reinforce the capacity of national and local NGOs in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. As part of the Burkina Faso project, 15 national NGOs will benefit directly from capacity-building activities, addressing needs identified by the in-country national NGO network, including on cross-cutting themes such as protection, PSEA and gender mainstreaming. The 12-month programme aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge package to reinforce national NGOs’ operational and organizational skillset, with direct support being provided by a team of coaches. An additional 30 national NGOs will indirectly benefit from the project through workshops and webinars. Overall, the project has the scope to create an interorganizational capacity-building cascade effect, with benefits for efficient, coordinated, and localized humanitarian response in Burkina Faso.
Moving from the distribution of emergency packages towards community-based resilience- and solutions-focused support will be critical to efforts to address the displacement crisis more sustainably, particularly for 39 per cent of IDPs who have been displaced for two or more years. It also represents an appropriate evolution of action in response to feedback from affected communities about their needs and preferences and will help to address the expectations of national authorities relating to the engagement of international partners. The current situation is on the cusp of becoming a protracted crisis, solid groundwork must be laid for durable solutions for the displaced and their host communities.
Burkina Faso
References
- NRC, World Most Neglected Crises 2022: Burkina Faso is the world’s most neglected crisis | NRC