• Population 15.264 million (2008)
• Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, it gained independence from France in 1960 and was renamed by President Thomas Sankara in 1984.
• Translation of Burkina Faso: Nation stands tall, or Land of honorable people.
• Burkina Faso is a landlocked country. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the south east, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d’Ivoire to the south west.

The Good

The people of Burkina Faso are hard-working, generous and full of laughter despite their impoverished conditions. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world yet is rich in culture, music, art and spiritual wisdom.

• Interdependence
• Community
• Rites of Passage (youth and elder initiation)
• Intimacy with the natural world
• Connection to the spiritual world
• Indigenous technologies that have been passed down orally through generations

All these essential qualities found in Burkina society hold great value for a world searching for sustainability and balance.

The Bad

• It is ranked 177 out of 182 countries on the Human Development Index (UNDP 2009).
• Burkina holds the worst rating on the planet in overall health and development status of mothers. (Save the Children)
• Infant mortality rate is 20%.(UNICEF)
• Nutritional status of children has worsened since 1993 and malnutrition is the underlying cause of 50% of all-cause child mortality.  (UNICEF)
• It has the highest illiteracy rate in the world. (UNDP)
• It is estimated that in a rural village 1 person in 1000 may be able to read. (International Service)
• 46% of people in BF live below the poverty line. (Better by the Year)
• Less than half of the population has access to clean water and less than 10% to adequate sanitation. (UNICEF)
• Desertification and deforestation are on the rise. Water availability has decreased annually for the past 45 years. (Better by the Year)
• It is estimated that 25% of the population has access to clean drinking water.
• Over 90% of the population does not have access to electricity.

More than 80% of Burkinabe (citizens of Burkina Faso) are smallholder subsistence farmers, the poorest of the poor who make less than $1/day, who experience three distinct seasons—the dry season, the rainy season, and the “hunger season” which takes place each year as farmers wait for crops to mature. These cultivateurs are caught in a permanent cycle of food insecurity.  Poor land use techniques and resource management worsen a bleak picture of unsustainability. Lack of knowledge about rudimentary hygiene contributes to the spread of disease.

The Transformative

It has been proven that small, benign interventions can be implemented in a rural African village to break through the otherwise insurmountable cycle of poverty.

The BARKA Foundation arose in order to address the most pressing issues facing a small village in the bush of Burkina Faso:

• water scarcity
• basic sanitation
• hunger
• sustainable agriculture
• deforestation
• healthcare
• access to energy
• climate change

BARKA’s guiding principle is to first do no harm. BARKA is engaged with the indigenous, local population to join hands together in solving the issues of transforming the cycle of permanent food insecurity and poverty into one of sustainability, empowerment, autonomy and prosperity.

The BARKA Foundation was created as a response to make needed changes to the way the western world approaches the issue of “development” and poverty eradication.