LAND AND RESOURCES
A Climate A dry, cool season in Burkina Faso extends from November through March; a hot, dry one from April through May; and a hot, wet one from June through October. Rainfall decreases from more than 1,000 mm (more than 40 in) in the southwest (the most agriculturally productive part of the country) to less than 250 mm (less than 10 in) in the north and is heaviest in the summer. Average temperatures in Ouagadougou vary from 24° C (76° F) in January to 28° C (83° F) in July.
B Natural Resources Burkina Faso is known to have rich deposits of manganese and gold and also resources of copper, iron ore, cassiterite (tin ore), and phosphates. Water supply is a problem in so dry a country and offers few opportunities for irrigation. Some 12 percent of the land is cultivated.
A Population Characteristics The population of Burkina Faso (1998 estimate) is 11,266,393. The overall population density is 41 persons per sq km (106 per sq mi). Some 83 percent of the population lives in rural areas.
Political Divisions and Principal
Language and Religion
D Education Education is free and officially compulsory for children between the ages of 7 and 14. However, only 39 percent of all primary school-age children were enrolled in 1996; only 9 percent of secondary school-age children attended school. The literacy rate for the adult population is 19 percent.
A university with an enrollment of 8,900 is at Ouagadougou, and government grants are available for higher education in European and African universities. A number of individuals study at Dakar, Senegal, at Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and overseas.
B Agriculture Aridity and erosion seriously hamper agricultural development, and most farming is concentrated in southern and southwestern Burkina Faso. Leading food crops, with 1998 production amounts in metric tons, were cereal grains, including sorghum, millet, rice, and corn (2 million); and pulses (66,000 metric tons). The chief cash crop was cotton (343,106 metric tons), which accounts for a large share of the country’s export income. The principal wealth of Burkina Faso is its livestock: 4.5 million cattle, 7.9 million goats, 6.2 million sheep, 586,600 pigs, 24,500 horses and asses, and 20.5 million poultry. Efforts were under way to rebuild the nation’s livestock industry following severe losses due to the recurrent drought in the region known as the Sahel between the late 1960s and early 1980s.
C Mining and Manufacturing Mining is of modest importance to the economy. Mineral output in the early 1990s included manganese, phosphates, and gold. Still in its infancy, manufacturing in Burkina Faso is principally related to processing agricultural products, particularly cotton, oils and fats, and sugar, and the production of such consumer items as soap, footwear, motorcycles, and motor scooters.
D Energy Some 66 percent of the country’s electricity is produced in thermal installations, most of which burn refined petroleum; the remainder is produced by hydroelectric facilities. In 1997, Burkina Faso generated 220 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.
E Currency and Banking The currency of Burkina Faso is the CFA franc, issued by the Central Bank of West Africa (584 CFA francs equal U.S.$1; 1997 average). An official exchange rate of 1 French franc equal to 50 CFA francs was in force from 1948 to January, 1994, when the CFA franc was devalued by 50 percent. The country has several banks that finance economic development.
F Commerce and Trade Like many developing nations, Burkina Faso imports far more than it exports. Imports consist of food, petroleum, textiles, iron, steel, metal products, vehicles, electrical equipment, and machinery. Major exports include raw cotton, gold, and livestock products. In 1996 imports were valued at $545 million, and exports totaled $424 million. Major trading partners for exports include France, Taiwan, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Japan; principal partners for imports are France, Japan, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, China, and the United States.
G Transportation and Communications A railroad links Ouagadougou to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and current development plans call for it to be extended north to rich manganese ores at Tambao and the Mali border. The country has 12,100 km (7,519 mi) of roads, of which about one-tenth are paved, although a major improvement program has been announced. Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso are served regularly by French airlines. The national airline is Air Burkina. A government-owned television service provides transmissions six days a week, seen in both Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. Radio broadcasts are made in French and 13 African languages. The nation has 4 daily newspapers.
A Executive and Legislature Under the 1991 constitution, executive power in Burkina Faso is vested in a president. The president is directly elected to a seven-year term.
The country has a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature, composed of a National Assembly and a House of Representatives. The 111 members of the National Assembly are directly elected to 5-year terms, and the 178 members of the House of Representatives (a purely consultative body) are appointed by the president to 3-year terms.
B Judiciary The judicial system of Burkina Faso consists of people’s revolutionary tribunals under the supervision of two appeals courts, one in Ouagadougou and the other at Bobo-Dioulasso.
C Health and Welfare The government provides hospitals and rural medical services and special health services for schools. An old-age and veterans’ pension system was established in 1960, and workers’ insurance plans were started in 1967. Average life expectancy at birth in 1998 was short: only 47 years for women and 45 for men. A meningitis epidemic which raged across West Africa in early 1996 severely hit Burkina Faso, infecting about 40,000 people, 4,000 of whom died by May of that year.
D Defense Military service is voluntary. The armed forces included 10,000 people in 1997: 5,600 personnel in the army; 200 in the air force; and the remainder in the gendarmerie, a civil police force.
VI HISTORY The history of Burkina Faso is largely the history of the ancient Mossi Kingdom. Various Mossi states were built up about the 14th century by peoples migrating from the north of modern Ghana. They evolved a strong administrative system and a tradition of divine kingship, which enabled them to prevent their incorporation by any of the Sudanic empires. The kingdom of Songhai, however, conquered the Mossi.
By the 19th century, the Mossi states were weakened. In 1896 the French set up a protectorate over the kingdom of Ouagadougou, and in 1904 the area became part of the colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger. In 1919 it was made into a separate constituent territory of French West Africa, only to be divided up in 1932 between the French Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire. It was reconstituted as the separate territory of Upper Volta in 1947.
Following the reforms of the French Union in 1957, Upper Volta became, in 1958, a self-governing republic and a member of the new French community. A government was formed, headed by Maurice Yaméogo, leader of the political party known as the Voltaic Democratic Union. In 1959 Upper Volta joined the council of the Entente, a loose association based on mutual political and economic interests. The Entente was composed of Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Dahomey (now Benin), and Togo. After its independence on August 5, 1960, Upper Volta remained an associated state of the European Community (now called the European Union).
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