Burkina Faso/ Fight against food insecurity: FAO launches a new project to relieve vulnerable households

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) officially launched the "Improving food security and protecting the livelihoods of vulnerable households in the Boucle du Mouhoun, Centre-nord and Nord regions of Burkina Faso" project on Thursday June 1, 2023 in Kaya, capital of the Centre-nord region. The project is funded by Norway.

This is a one-year project that will cover eight communes in four provinces and three regions. It will support some 6,800 households through the Cash plus Agropastoral Inputs approach, and provide support for the development of income-generating activities (IGAs) for women heads of household.

According to Badjougué Dembélé, coordinator of FAO-Burkina Faso's emergency and resilience programs and emissary of the FAO-Burkina representative, this approach will be implemented in line with the guidance given by the authorities on the cash modality. "Cash+ is a social protection approach that combines two complementary intervention modalities, namely cash transfers and productive assistance, in order to create synergies that will increase the impact of the program.Cash+ is a social protection approach that combines two complementary intervention modalities, namely cash transfers and productive assistance, in order to create synergies that increase their respective impacts tenfold," said the FAO Burkina Faso emergency and resilience program coordinator.

This project responds to the critical needs of households affected by the crisis in Burkina Faso, said Mr. Dembélé. For him, the program will provide adequate assistance to vulnerable households affected by the project to improve their livelihoods.

The project activities will be carried out on the ground with the technical support of government services and NGOs from civil society.

Implementation of the project will be made possible thanks to funding from Norway. "On the basis of the advocacy made by the FAO, especially from the evidence of the adverse effects of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on food security. In May 2023, Norway granted additional funding of two million US dollars, raising the project's overall budget to three million dollars, or around 1.8 billion FCFA. This top-up has enabled us to extend the project's intervention zone to cover the Centre-Nord and Nord regions," says Badjougué Dembélé.

Inoussa Kaboré, General Secretary of the Sanmatenga province, expressed his gratitude to FAO. "As you know, the Centre-Nord is one of the regions hardest hit by the security crisis, as it is home to 24% of the country's internally displaced persons, according to the latest figures from FAO.According to the latest CONASUR figures, it is also home to more than 500,000 food-insecure people.

He added: "This funding made available to the FAO will help strengthen the resilience of populations vulnerable to food insecurity in the Boucle du Mouhoun, Nord and Centre-Nord regions. The package of activities that will be implemented for the 6,706 households benefiting from the project, including crop and livestock production and cash transfers, will go some way to resolving their urgent needs.

Source: lefaso.net