The African Development Bank (AfDB) says the Programme to Build Resilience to Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2RS) has benefited the most vulnerable populations in 92 communes in Burkina Faso.
Development Diaries reports that the P2RS was created to address the structural causes of acute and chronic food and nutrition crises in the Sahel.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) had raised concerns in January 2021 that acute food insecurity increased by 167 percent in Burkina Faso, compared with the five-year average.
UNICEF urged humanitarian actors on the ground and the international community to urgently provide support for children and families.
With a view to overcoming the food challenges in Burkina Faso, the AfDB provided a grant and a 50–50 concessional loan of over 30 million euros to the country’s government to finance the programme.
The project aims to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable populations with regard to food and nutrition.
Focusing in particular on the women empowerment and paying special attention to young children, the P2RS is designed to develop rural infrastructure in the areas of hydro-agriculture, forestry, pastoral, fisheries and nutrition.
It also aims to improve productivity and increase agro-sylvo-pastoral, fisheries and beekeeping production on a sustainable basis.
In a video update on its website, the AfDB noted that despite political upheavals, the P2RS has not deviated from its objectives.
The P2RS Programme Coordinator, Daniel Gampine, said the programme will rehabilitate four existing dams and build three new ones.
He also said, ‘It is a question of building 20 warehouses, ten slaughtering areas, 12 vaccination parks, 26 pastoral drillings, three livestock markets’.
Speaking on the P2RS impact, the Secretary of the Torodo Dam Water Users Committee in Burkina Faso, Bilbata Bagzeremde, said, ‘In the dry season we grow onions and tomatoes to sell them and pay for the children’s school fees and take care of our families.
‘In the rainy season, we can grow rice which we can also sell. Really, this makes our life easier and we thank the project’.
Source: AfDB
Photo source: AfDB Projects
