Burkina Faso and development aid

Burkina Faso had an income per capita of $ 350 in 2004, holding the 183 rd place on the list. This is a factor 90 smaller than Belgium , with its $ 31.280 and 17 th ranking.

Their debt has grown from $ 834 million in 1990 to $1967 million in 2004 or over 200% of their national export figure.

All tables and studies are telling us the same:
the sub-sahara is not coping with the targets set by International Organisations to cut poverty in 2 by 2010.

As one of the poorest countries with no natural resources, Burkina Faso is high on the list of international aid. This aid is coming in via several ways: international organisations, big and small NGO's.

The number of NGO's, local and foreign, active in Burkina Faso is estimated at 15.000.
Not surprisingly they have a ministry which co-ordinate all these NGO's.

On the other hand, busy as they are with the co-ordination of aid, they have very little time for projects with no or very little money, no matter how useful these project could be.

Most contacts inside ministries, and even several outside, were looking first for the possibility to finance the proejcts with aid-money instead of having a closer look to see if they could organise without this aid-money. This kind of behaviour creates barriers for creating an own force for economical growth and is enforcing bureaucracy and overhead.

See also world bank indicators, studies and data about poverty:

http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/Table1_1.htm
http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/Section1_1_1.htm
and others on the same site.