WHY BURKINA FASO?

We have selected Burkina Faso as our country of focus for the African continent. While Africa overall is facing many environmental, social, and economic challenges, Burkina Faso presents a particularly compelling opportunity to explore the relationship between education and sustainability. In this small, landlocked, and impoverished nation where 80 percent of the population relies on subsistence agriculture, the community is facing tremendous impacts from climate change.

Unpredictable rainfall and increasingly high temperatures have led to soil degradation, water shortages, and reduced crop yields, among other impacts. Such changes not only disrupt the lives and livelihoods of Burkinabe, but also have the potential to instigate political instability and regional conflict over such issues as water availability, food security, disease prevalence, and population distribution.

These factors combined with a fast-growing population, a weak communications and technology infrastructure, environmentally harmful practices such as deforestation and overgrazing, and an adult literacy rate of less than 30 percent present great challenges to the nation of Burkina Faso. Though formal schooling is mandatory through age 16, only about 80 percent of children attend primary school, and less than 42 percent of those who begin are able to complete it. That percentage drops in half yet again in terms of the number of children who continue on to secondary school.

Given these challenges, how can the people of Burkina Faso best work toward reducing poverty and fostering human development while maintaining ample water and food supplies and without degrading their natural environment? How can we as a world community help reduce our environmental impact on countries such as Burkina Faso, while helping them achieve sustainability of their limited natural resources? And what role does education play in all this, what do education and sustainability mean to the people of Burkina Faso? Earthducation seeks to help stimulate a world dialogue in search of answers to questions such as these.

Video Resources

VIDEO: Helping Themselves – Burkina Faso. Discusses ways Burkinabe are working together to better livelihoods and lives for themselves and neighbors. Talks about the high rate of illiteracy along with poverty, climate, and water shortages. Also discusses the ethnic diversity in Burkina Faso and the fact that, despite the great diversity, these groups coexist peacefully.