Burkina Faso is a landlocked country, with low levels of human development. The Human Development Index (HDI) stood at 0.4 in 2018, ranking the country at 183 out of 189 countries. Its economy remains agricultural and focused on food crops and cotton production. Over the last twenty years, the country has experienced average annual GDP growth of around 2%. However, poverty rates have remained unchanged during the period. To support the rural area the GoBF launched an initiative called “creation of 2,000 ecovillages” which aspired to implement inclusive growth in rural areas and preservation of the environment. Its intervention framework integrates the contribution of the government and other actors in national development i.)State, ii.)Local Authorities, iii.)Private Sector, and iv.)technical and v.)financial partners to the realization of the basic infrastructures (such as the socio-economic infrastructures) and the creation of a framework encouraging the development of sustainable investment models in rural areas.
The overall objective of the project is to support the development of the Sustainable Landscape and scaling up of Ecovillages development model by focusing on ‘climate smart’ agriculture practices, including agroforestry and Conservation Agriculture for the production of cotton, fruit and rice and the provision of renewable energy (RE) for productive uses by rural communities residing at Ecovillages. The project is aligned with IO1 to strengthen national, sub-national and local green growth planning, financing and institutional frameworks and implementation of these actions will produce a set of best practices; ones that will support stronger and inclusive social and economic rural development, while ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources.

Impact: The project has made available to Burkina Faso an investment program to support the implementation of the Ecovillage initiative. In order to operationalize the national strategy of ecovillage, the GoBF with the support of GGGI, has translated it into concrete investment projects, within an investment program.

Outcome: N/A

Project Outputs completed in 2019:

i. Green Growth Policies:

• Program for operationalizing the Ecovillages initiative is developed and adopted by the GoBF. The Investment programs containing i.) ecovillages guidelines, ii.) investment program business model and iii.) investment program components and projects.

ii. Green Investments: N/A

• Advisory outputs that aim to create enabling environment: The expected impacts of the implementation of the investment program are : i.) a generation of $ 30 billion of revenue over the life of the project, which represents 6 times the investment cost, ii.) an increase in carbon sequestration capacity of nearly 14,336 T eqco2 / year, iii.) a reduction of GHG emissions of nearly 3000 TCO2 eq / year, iv.) a creation of more than 15 000 green jobs and 200 new businesses and v.) an eradication of hunger and poverty in ecovillages. The advisory output is the Investment program, declined into nineteen (19) projects for an estimated total cost of 26.4M USD, over a period from 2020 to 2030.

iii. Capacity Building and Knowledge Products

• Total of 3 capacity building activities in the form of workshops which were the official launch of the study and the validation of the methodology of the study, examine first version of the Ecovillage Investment Program and its technical validation, and exchange forum to share insights and validate proposed investment options for identified villages.
• Total of 6 Knowledge productions delivered which are five presentations and a detailed report on the investment program.

Project Manager: Malle Fofana

Lamine Ouedaogo, Mark Gibson, Yassia Savadogo