A United Nations-backed pilot programme that supplies electric generators to rural women farmers in Burkina Faso, freeing them from lengthy chores so that they can devote more time to education, childcare and health care, is to be adopted on a national scale.

He gives computer advice to his fellow-teachers and fixes broken printers. He also uses digital material to enrich his classes and by using a school blog he helped to set up a partnership with a French school. Through IICD-supported trainings, teacher Christophe Hien of Bogodogo College in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso is now an ICT expert at his scho

In a landmark decision, the government of Burkina Faso has decided to remove its water and electricity utilities from the list of state companies to be privatised. Defying the IMF, government rather decided it would be enough to restructure the companies' management.

Health officials in the west African country of Burkina Faso are worried about an increase in deaths from meningitis which has killed 246 people so far this year, up from 203 in the same period last year.

Too many obstacles still stand between women and safe childbirth in Burkina Faso, with discrimination against women at the heart of the problem, Amnesty International says. Females' low social status fuels maternal deaths, with early marriage and women's lack of control over family planning major contributors, Amnesty says in a report released on 27 January.

After researchers in Burkina Faso identified the best crop varieties for the Sissili region, a local organization, FEPPASI, introduced ICTs to inform farmers and explain new growing techniques. As a result, production is up to nine times greater than before.

Burkina Faso is one of continent’s main producers with cotton making up about 60 per cent of its export revenues. Yet Africa’s textile producers still prefer to buy their cotton from America or Asia instead.

Burkina Faso’s first plastic recycling centre is paving the way for a new kind of development project. It provides a money earner to the poor while tackling environmental pollution. Local industry also benefits – the recycled plastic granules cost half the price of importing new plastic from abroad.

Supporters of the slain military leader of Burkina Faso, Captain Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara, have denounced international support for the regime of President Blaise Compaore saying it was doing all it can for him "to rule for ever". Commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of Captain Sankara in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou, they gathered at the Daghnoen cemetery, a district in Ouagadougou, around the tombs of their idol and his companions who were assassinated on 15 October, 1987 during a coup.

An estimated 48,000 people uprooted by severe flooding in Burkina Faso are sheltering in temporary accommodation such as schools, churches and public buildings while another 40,000 are living with host families, the United Nations has reported. A UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team that went to Burkina Faso in the wake of the recent flooding also found that facilities in many of the buildings in which people are taking shelter, especially sanitation, are under strain.

Eugène Tavares

Honorat Aguessy

One of the two UNESCO 2009 prizes for Literacy Education awarded by King Sejong and financed by the Korean Republic has been awarded to Burkina's "Tin Tua", an NGO in literacy and non-formal education, a press release from the UN special agency has said. The "Tin Tua" programme (Let's develop ourselves, in gulimancema, a local language in Eastern Burkina), got very good results by using the participants' mother tongue, producing material for specific reading and laying emphasis on issues of gender and sustained development of communities.

Astounding allegations have come forth about the 1987 assassination of the former president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, through a documentary aired on Italy’s public channel RAI3. The documentary, entitled ‘African Shadows’ and by Silvestro Montanaro, details the alleged links of the American and French secret services to Sankara’s assassins and the involvement of the current President of Burkina Faso Blaise Compaoré. This week’s Pambazuka News brings you the striking three-part transcript of the recent documentary, featuring the testimonies of well-known Liberian figures.

Burkina Faso’s first plastic recycling centre is paving the way for a new kind of development project. It provides a money earner to the poor while tackling environmental pollution. Local industry also benefits – the recycled plastic granules cost half the price of importing new plastic from abroad.

Burkina Faso was one of several countries that where a rapid rise in food prices led to rioting in the streets in 2008. Policy-makers had sensed a crisis developing, but the country was not able to build up sufficient reserves of imported commodities such as rice, wheat and oil to avoid it. There is now an emphasis on achieving food security. Bonou tells IPS that Burkina Faso is one of the handful of countries respecting the Maputo commitment to spending at least ten percent of its budget on agriculture.

Burkina Faso's Prime Minister, Tertius Zongo, has urged striking national union of teachers and researchers (SYNADEC) to end their two two-month old strike saying government is prepared to dialogue with them. “Government remains sensitive to the material and moral interests of workers and will never stop dialoguing with them through their trade unions,” he told a news conference in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Taiwan's trade promotion body has recently set up an office in Burkina Faso, the first in West Africa, in an effort to facilitate business exchanges with the African country as well as the nearby region, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official has said.

Fraud, data piracy, seeking partners on the internet: women in Burkina Faso are as much victims as perpetrators. From Ouagadougou to Banfora via Bobo-Dioulasso, and from Ouahigouya to Dori, all towns with an internet connection are affected by this phenomenon. However, the fight against this crime is in the tentative stages, if not altogether non-existent. Legislation is still under development.

Women performing excisions in Burkina Faso are cutting babies instead of young girls to escape increased scrutiny, according to the government and organisations fighting female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). FGM/C has been outlawed in Burkina Faso since 1996 and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and US$1500 in fines.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest by the security forces in Burkina Faso of four organisers of a big demonstration marking the 10th anniversary of the assassination of investigative journalist, Norbert Zongo, in Burkina Faso. The four are leading members of the Coalition Against Impunity which organised the demonstration in the capital, Ouagadougou, last Saturday, in support of the call for a fast-track inquest into Zongo’s murder.