The first cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Burkina Faso were confirmed on March 9, 2020, making Burkina Faso the sixth country affected in sub-Saharan Africa after Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Togo and fourth in West Africa. Four days later, the third case was confirmed; a week later, Burkina already had 20 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. As of April 05, 2020, in less than one (01) month after the first confirmed cases, the government announced that Burkina was counting a total of 345 confirmed cases including 119 women and 226 men.Read More “STOP COVID-19 : Health and Help Initiative first awareness raising activity”
On Friday January 31, 2020, an important donation activity for displaced people took place in the Manga province, the Southern Central Region of Burkina Faso. A great number of the YALI Mandela Fellows 2019 and one representative of the U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso (coordinator of the YALI program) were present. It follows on from an online fundraising activity that I initiated in December 2019 which raised $ 3,050. As a reminder, I had explained in a previous article last month that for administrative reasons, the donation activity was pending until a hierarchical authorization was given to us. It finally happened last week.
Il y a de cela 4 mois, j’ai facilité le financement d’une activité de recherche dans le cadre du projet “Centre LucAS”. Cette activité qui a consisté à l’immersion d’un Etudiant en médecine dans le site minier de Kari-Bombi (dans la Province du Tuy, Région des Hauts-Bassins) devrait contribuer à la rédaction de sa thèse de doctorat en Médecine et s’inscrivait dans le programme d’activités du projet “Centre LucAS”. Cet article représente le rapport d’activité produit par l’étudiant.Read More “Immersion au site minier de Kari-Bombi”
Interview with Scarlett, Cincinnati, Kentucky, United States, June 2019
The Mandela Washington Fellowship is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. It aims to recognize and support the critical and increasing role of African youth in strengthening democratic institutions, spurring economic growth, and enhancing peace and security in Africa.
For this year 2019, ten (10) fellows from Burkina Faso were selected to attend an intensive leadership training within 3 tracks (Public management, Business and Civic engagement). Here is their stories.
Who is Scarlett Zongo, urban planer and environmental engineering?
Scarlett: “I am an urban planer and environmental engineering master graduate from two universities in Montreal, Canada. After 5 years of working as technical assistant, project manager and coordinator, I decided to go back to Burkina Faso to do my part in developing the country”.
“Since 2016, my contribution to environmental and sustainable development awareness through my start-up CitéBranchée, led to my appointment as a technical advisor to the Mayor of Ouagadougou. Since 2018, I have been in charge of assessment Commissions regarding environmental pollution, gender related environmental issues, sustainable public toilets program and a zero waste area program. Having two “hats” makes me more creative and gives me more flexibility to impact my community. More over, my position at the Mayor’s office enables me to work at a decisions’ making level to really tackle environmental challenges, which as an entrepreneur I wouldn’t be able to do”.
What’s the biggest challenge you would like to take?
“The biggest challenge I would like to solve is the waste management issue in my community. In Ouagadougou, public spaces are use as garbage can, toilet, sewage, and so on due to poor law enforcement, lack of communication, lack of equipment and uncivil citizens. As the Mayor’s advisor I am glad to be able to influence decisions makers to address correctly that matter. I am currently working on the first ever zero waste area program of Ouagadougou. The waste management issue is well known to the decision makers because a dirty city is the first thing that people see. Beside, insalubrity can be detrimental when it is time to be re-elected. Regardless of the will to solve the problem, the implementation of measures and plans are hard to do. That is why, event though huge amount of money is pour every year to manage waste, my city is still dirty and my fellow citizens keep throwing waste on the street, before or after complaining about insalubrity. That is why I have designed a zero waste tolerance zone in the hyper center of Ouagadougou with enough garbage cans, employees to clean the streets, and policemen to enforce all measures that will be put in place. But the bigger challenge I know will be to convince people to change their behaviour toward waste and the respect of public spaces. For that, I have helped develop a communication campaign to explain, inform and advise about what’s coming next year”.
How could you explain your professional approach to this challenge?
“I strongly believe that the private sector is the solution to help resolve one of the biggest challenges African cities are facing, which is unemployment. That is why I want will further grow my company by exploring other environmental related fields such as industrial recycling and waste management plants implementation. More over, I want my business to expand within 3–5 years in order to create more jobs for young people while using local hand force in a social economy kind of way to boost my community and prevent their illegal immigration to European countries”.
Since few days, a new challenge went viral on internet by increasingly pushing thousands of people into hunting garbage in public places worldwide. This is the #trashtag or the facebook #trashchallenge which started with a Facebook post by a certain Byron Romàn. On a first picture, we see a young man sitting on a chair in the middle of dozens of rubbish. The other shot, attached below, shows the individual standing in the same place. Except that all plastic bags and other bottles have disappeared and been picked up and then compacted in trash bags. The user accompanies the editing of a message: “Here’s a new #challenge for you, bored kids. Take a picture of a place that needs cleaning or maintenance, then take a picture after doing something about it and post it. Join the cause. “
Being a simple, basic and accessible challenge to take up, this actually inspired many web users. They just have to find a public place full of trash made by human being and shoot it. In group or alone, they must then bring few garbage bags, pick up all the garbage, make a new photo and post it online with the hashtag #TrashChallenge. What is interesting in doing this is not only cleaning the place but it is also showing the example to encourage other users to do the same. More importantly, by participating in the movement, we are all contributing to raise our communities awareness on litter and plastic pollution.
The situation of trash management policies in Burkina Faso
Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso. It is the administrative, communications, economic and cultural centre of the country. With a population of 2,200,000 in 2015, Ouagadougou the largest city of Burkina with an area of 52,000 ha is two and a half times Paris.
Formally, the garbage (household and industrial solid garbage) management system in the city of Ouagadougou is articulated as follows:
– The pre-collection phase (1): which is about collecting garbage in streets and at households using carts and tractors and transporting them to ‘collection centers’. There is at least one collecting center per district.
– The Collection phase (2): this refers to the transportation of rubbish from collection centers to the Technical Landfill Center outside the city.
– The treatment (3) of the waste is then carried out at the Technical Landfill Center where the organic waste is composted and other waste buried in cells also called OM cells.
The city of Ouagadougou developed a Plan for waste management which resulted in the subdivision of the city of into twelve (12) garbage collection areas, with 35 transit centers, and the construction of a Waste Treatment and Recovery Center (CTVD) in April 2005. Thanks to a recent sanitation project targeting the peripheral areas of Ouagadougou, 21 new landfill cells in the waste treatment and recovery center have been built between 2018–2019. Each cell has an absorption capacity of 28,000 tonnes of waste. The lifespan of these cells is estimated at around fifteen years.
Despite these efforts, waste management remains a tricky issue for governments, mayors and other community leaders in charge of public management. Indeed, the issue is at several levels:
a.The poor understanding by the majority of Burkinabè populations of the importance to manage waste through the way of buying, sorting, collection and treatment. More importantly, the daily use of plastic in the Burkinabè people habits has reached an alarming point. In streets, at home, in supermarkets and shops, the drinking water is packed and sold into ‘plastic bags’ called ‘sachet water’. Plastic bags are also used for shopping either at supermarkets or in informal street markets. Consequently, huge amounts of plastic out of use are thrown in the nature because the production is by far higher than the absorption system. Despite the existing collection system, many of households still don’t have the habit to collect their garbage which tends to make difficult the work of collectors.
b.The lack of space mostly for the collection phase in town
The number of collection centers as well as their locations did not grow proportionally to the density of population and the urbanisation rate. At the same time, the way of buying evolved towards the use of plastic as a mass market product. Hence, it is now challenging to find an empty garbage bin or at least some place identified as a ‘collection centers’.
c.The lack of deep innovative skills locally to recycle, reuse or transform the garbage
The last few years, the Burkinabè environmental policies tended to limit significantly the import of plastic bags and its use in the daily way of buying. Some of the methods include a collecting system by the government through the purchase of used plastic bags. This incited people to clean their communities.
In the manufacturing sector, the range of recycled products is wider. Plastic bags are reused in the handcraft, the weaving, etc. Old tires are transformed into nice paintings, seats, tables, etc. But the transformation level remains weak compared to developed countries. We think that sorting waste which consists of separating glass, plastic, paper and organic waste is the biggest challenge and the core of the garbage management issue. And there is also something to do with how to change mentalities.
Despite everything, it’s worth trying something should we be alone or in group. Here is where the #trashchallenge becomes interesting to conduct.
The story of my #trashchallenge
Having seen how the hashtag went viral online, I decided to try it in the city of Ouagadougou. I choose a strategic place which is located in a well-known business area of Ouagadougou called ‘Zone d’Activités Diverses (ZAD)’. It is also in the opposite side of a nice restaurant frequented by students whose Business school is perceptible just few meters away. The area is very lively as people come evenings for jogging after work. Some also come frequently to exercise on driving cars. Despite the crowd listed, the place has been progressively full of garbage and plastic bags in full view of everyone. I started buying materials, finding teammates and cleaning the place on 13rd March 2019. We tried to separate plastic bags. We worked on daytime in plain view of passers-by. It was interesting because one of them, a traveling salesman was attracted so he joined us to help. The day after when the place was clean, we went to take photos and we surprisingly found some businessmen who parked their big cars there. We waited that they leave before continuing.
Achille in the place, before cleaning it
Achille in the same place, after cleaning it
In summary, the activity was a challenge for me for different reasons:
– Trash is always seen as ‘dirty’, ‘harmful’, ‘unhealthy’. Being in contact with unknown debris could be dangerous. So the first thing to do was finding the ways to keep myself in security while conducting the activity.
– Most of people use to have a negative perception towards trash collectors. It’s then challenging to pick up garbage in a public place especially when you are alone. For my case, I worked with 3 other people.
– Finding a ‘collection center’ was not difficult as one was located nearby. It was full but we managed to sort it out.
By initiating and conducting this symbolic activity, I aimed to raise my community awareness on the crucial need to be environment friendly by managing our garbage. It was a challenge which was really nice and necessary to take up.
In September 2015, the General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This agenda was built on the principle of “leaving no one behind” by emphasising a holistic approach to achieving sustainable development for all (United Nations). Among these goals is the need to ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (#Envision2030 Goal 3) that this article is going to focus on in the specific context of Burkina Faso.Read More “Digital transformation in Burkina Faso: the case of ‘LucAS health Clinic’”
On October 5, 2018, exactly 2 weeks after he returned from his trip to Stockholm, Sweden where he received alternative Nobel Prize for his work against the advancing desert, Yacouba Sawadogo, 80 years old, ‘the man who wanted to stop the desert’ accepted to give me an interview.
After the traditional ‘father and son’ welcome and greetings as its common in the Burkinabe culture, we had a 20 minutes exchange. This was about Yacouba biography, his experiences, achievements and his plans. Then I went for a round walking away, accompanied by few young men that Yacouba put at my disposal, for one hour and half to see what was done effectively.Read More “Yacouba Sawadogo the ‘man who wanted to stop the desert’”
Young Burkinabe and British volunteers, Burkina Faso
Introduction
I had worked for years within the UKAID International Citizen Service Programme, which objectives include the involvement of youth in worldwide development through international volunteering. I also have an academic background and work experience focused in economics and international development cooperation. Additionally, I was previously granted with a Erasmus scholarship as student from ACP country to study in Europe. Within this enriching experience I rubbed with young people from different countries with background. This has shaped my thoughts and helped me to better capture the power of youth to change the world positively.
Some personal experience and lessons
In general, I noted that youth doesn’t have access to the opportunities to thrive and reach their full potential. The reasons for that include the lack of knowledge and/or respect of human rights, also seen as a denial of opportunities. This in turn results in young people being pessimistic about the future, feeling socially excluded from decisions making, even sometimes “lost”. To address this, it’s important to seriously re-establish their confidence by engaging them in political dialogue, giving them more opportunities to innovate and educating them in global challenges to think globally and act locally for a global positive change.
Youth and international cooperation: the potential role of youth in the future partnership Europe-Africa
The current European or African context is reflected by instability and conflict, migration and refugee crisis, climate change, increasing gap between richest and poorest globally and within countries. The partnership Europe-Africa must then focus on tackling these issues as a matter of emergency and in general contribute to Sustainable Development Goals which are the framework for development globally until 2030. The role of youth in this ambitious plan can be seen in different ways. Young people are the driving forces of any economy, they are good in innovating and using IT; their voice carries far and discrimination is less perceptible within them. They are expected to build networks for experience sharing on vocational ideas, entrepreneurship techniques and technology based on comparative advantages of each country. To illustrate this, Western African youth is good in regional integration; European youth could share their knowledge of entrepreneurship, marketing concepts, IT, etc.
Indeed, in many African countries including Burkina Faso today, populations needs and expectations are high such that every sector is a priority.
The first good illustration is about economy and finance. Access to good payment and transfer services and credit is an issue for the majority of people namely in rural areas in Burkina Faso. Banks and financial institutions use to require a regular income to have an account while a small proportion of the population is employed formally. There are also some costs for transactions. Financial organisations are also not located in all areas across the country. These reasons result in loss of economic opportunities for individuals and communities’ development. By using the internet, it is possible today to build a more accessible and decentralized financial network involving cryptocurrencies. In a previous article, I explained why mobile banking is a success in Burkina Faso, which could be taken as an opportunity to spread blockchains.
In terms of health policy, it’s alarming. For the few privileged workers who have 80% health insurance, it is easier to receive a treatment in private clinics that have the reputation of being better (this information is not verified). But for the vast majority who are poor, it is a ‘survival fight’ in public health centers which are very poorly equipped in infrastructure (lack of scanner, lack of incubators, and many other things) and where the Specialized medical staff is not always available for various reasons. At some point it’s possible to say: ‘Just don’t fall sick in Burkina otherwise your chances of dying are much more higher than in normal context’. By developing common projects or charities, youth could contribute to tackle this issue.
The issue of energy provision is also accurate in many African countries, particularly in Burkina Faso where electricity shortage could last more than 10 hours during peak of needs (March-May). Western university students could bring their knowledge to transform the solar energy and reversely take this opportunity to do research in a real context.
Other examples could be taken to illustrate this point.
Youth and demography
The issue of harnessing the demographic dividend is fascinating. It’s topical in many African countries and more specifically in the ECOWAS zone, following a recent call from parliamentarians for lower fertility rates. This call is economically understandable considering the limited natural resources and difficulties for governments to take good care of populations. However, it’s very complicated when it comes to explaining people the reasons for lower birth rates. The rationales for giving birth are complex cross-culturally and within cultures. This could be part of the reasons why many demographic policies fail in the way they approach the idea of demographic dividend.
By raising youth awareness on urgent global challenges and investing on them, it is possible to harness the demographic dividend as promoted by the European Union. Investing on youth as mentioned above include giving them the opportunities to thrive and reach their full potential through participation in decision making, education, employment and respect of human rights at large. By tackling the demographic issue using youth, we are indirectly tackling the issues of conflict, migration and refugee crisis, climate change, etc.
Youth and global security
The issue of harnessing the demographic dividend is fascinating. It’s topical in many African countries and more specifically in the ECOWAS zone, following a recent call from parliamentarians for lower fertility rates. This call is economically understandable considering the limited natural resources and difficulties for governments to take good care of populations. However, it’s very complicated when it comes to explaining people the reasons for lower birth rates. The rationales for giving birth are complex cross-culturally and within cultures. This could be part of the reasons why many demographic policies fail in the way they approach the idea of demographic dividend.
By raising youth awareness on urgent global challenges and investing on them, it is possible to harness the demographic dividend as promoted by the European Union. Investing on youth as mentioned above include giving them the opportunities to thrive and reach their full potential through participation in decision making, education, employment and respect of human rights at large. By tackling the demographic issue using youth, we are indirectly tackling the issues of conflict, migration and refugee crisis, climate change, etc.
Conclusion
Youth is a driving force of any economy but it needs to be used appropriately for a positive impact. In this article based on my personal and professional experience, I tried to explain why and how youth could be involved in building a more cohesive, positive and peaceful world for all. This goes from their role in international cooperation through common and innovative projects development, to harnessing the demographic dividend and building peace.
