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Overview
In 2023, the World Food Programme's response in Burkina Faso remained essential as the country grappled with another challenging year marked by escalating armed conflict and a surge in violence. The situation translated into continued population displacement, disruption of livelihood activities, and severely constrained access to basic social services and markets. This left around 4.7 million people [1] requiring humanitarian assistance throughout the year. During the lean season between June and August 2023, nearly 3.4 million people, or 15 percent of the population, were acutely food insecure. Moreover, the country continued to grapple with both prolonged and new internal displacement, with 2.1 million people -- mostly women and children -- officially displaced by the conflict.
In response to the dire humanitarian situation, WFP continued to target people the most food insecure people, providing them with unconditional life-saving food and nutrition assistance. Additionally, WFP's integrated resilience-building programme continued to invest in more durable solutions by facilitating early recovery of livelihoods, enhancing food systems, and addressing the underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition. Through these activities, WFP also contributed to social cohesion, particularly in areas where mass displacement placed mounting pressure on the limited resources of host communities. Notably, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) highlighted that WFP's resilience-building interventions facilitated intra- and intercommunity dialogue, enhanced trust between communities and their leaders, and contributed to women's empowerment by facilitating their participation in planning and decision-making processes. Internally displaced persons comprised nearly 40 percent of the total beneficiaries assisted during the year, whereas they accounted for 20 percent of those reached through conditional activities aimed at creating and rehabilitating productive assets, such as agricultural lands for cultivation.
While WFP received substantial contributions thanks to the donor community's commitment, available contributions in 2023 declined by ten percent compared to 2022 despite the escalating needs. By the end of 2023, the revised annual needs-based plan was funded at only 69 percent, with crisis response activities (strategic outcome 1) experiencing the most significant funding gap. In contrast, resilience-building activities (strategic outcome 4) met over 100 percent of their respective annual funding requirements.
The challenging conditions of the operational environment persisted throughout the year, hindering the delivery of relief assistance to those who needed it most. The ongoing conflict, rampant insecurity, the physical isolation of certain localities due to siege tactics, movement restrictions, and government regulations, such as the suspension of cash-based assistance in humanitarian programmes, were some of the main challenges confronted in 2023. WFP adapted to the evolving circumstances, operationalising alternative solutions such as delivering assistance via heavy-lift helicopters, participating in government-organized supply convoys, and expanding direct delivery through a dedicated WFP fleet. While maintaining access negotiations, WFP remained committed to a needs-based humanitarian action in line with the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and operational independence.
In 2023, WFP reached over 3.1 million women, men, girls, and boys across its activities in Burkina Faso -- marking a significant increase compared to the 2.1 million people assisted in 2022. Women and girls represented 53 percent of those assisted. Moreover, WFP successfully reached its annual target of assisting 1.2 million internally displaced persons. As in previous years, saving lives remained WFP's highest priority, along with changing lives for the better through conflict-sensitive resilience-building activities. The provision of emergency food assistance comprised the largest programme area, reaching 1.7 million people. Targeting children aged 6-59 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls (PBWG), WFP's malnutrition prevention and treatment programmes reached 149,700 and 181,200 people, respectively. Benefitting over 486,200 schoolchildren, WFP's school feeding activity remained essential for children's health and cognitive development, including those whose access to education was disrupted by the conflict. In addition, WFP changed lives by building the resilience of vulnerable households and communities to better withstand shocks and stressors, such as the impacts of the climate crisis. Nearly 502,900 people benefitted from asset creation and livelihood activities, while 112,000 smallholders received support through trainings, tools, and agricultural inputs. Lastly, due to the authorities' decision to suspend the use of cash-based transfers (CBT) nationwide, WFP was compelled to gradually decrease and stop this modality, resulting in a 55 percent reduction in the total amount of CBT transferred in 2023 compared to 2022.
Strengthening national institutions and systems remained a priority for WFP, particularly in the fields of disaster risk management and social protection. For example, WFP continued its collaboration with the National Council for Social Protection's Permanent Secretariat and played a key role in developing a capacity-strengthening plan to address the institution's capacity gaps and needs. Additionally, WFP assisted in finalising the Government's new National Social Protection Strategy, along with its three-year action plan, and supported the pilot phase of the national Unified Social Registry. The World Bank and WFP continued their long-standing collaboration in the area of adaptive social protection, extending their Memorandum of Understanding for the period 2024-2028 and jointly developing a two-year action plan to support national social protection priorities.
WFP continued to demonstrate its role as the backbone of the wider humanitarian response in Burkina Faso through the WFP-managed United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), as well as the WFP-led Logistics Cluster and the Information Technology Common Service (ITCS) sector. Given the severely impeded road access, UNHAS continued to provide safe, reliable, cost-efficient, and timely passenger and cargo air transport services, enabling the humanitarian and development community to access and operate in even the hardest-to-reach areas such as Djibo. The ITCS sector coordinated and implemented security communications services in Ouagadougou and six United Nations hubs. Additionally, it provided essential internet connectivity in three hard-to-reach locations in the Sahel region. Lastly, the Logistics Cluster continued to support humanitarian partners by coordinating logistics responses, sharing critical information in a timely manner, and facilitating access to common logistics services such as storage and air transport for relief items.