Burkina Faso has signed a 645 billion CFA francs ($1.16 billion) programme with the United Nations to overhaul its food systems, as the Sahelian country seeks to stabilise food supply, protect rural livelihoods and manage rising climate and security pressures that are straining public finances.
The agreement, announced on February 7 by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, is designed to support food and nutritional sovereignty over the medium term while anchoring humanitarian and stabilisation spending within a broader development framework.
The programme targets regions with high agricultural and agro-pastoral potential as well as areas facing acute food insecurity linked to climate shocks and insecurity. It aims to strengthen production, processing and distribution systems, with a focus on sustainability and resilience rather than short-term output gains.
For Burkina Faso, where agriculture employs the majority of the population and food imports weigh heavily on foreign exchange reserves, food systems have become a central economic and fiscal concern rather than a purely social issue.
The food systems initiative is the largest of three UN-supported programmes signed under the agreement. It sits alongside a humanitarian-development-peace transition support programme valued at 109 billion CFA francs and a stabilisation, social cohesion and transition support programme budgeted at 151 billion CFA francs.
Together, the three pillars are intended to align emergency assistance, recovery and longer-term investment at a time when insecurity and climate stress have blurred the boundaries between humanitarian response and development planning.
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According to Aboubakar Nacanabo, Burkina Faso’s Minister of Economy and Finance, the programmes are designed as operational instruments to accelerate implementation of the RELANCE National Development Plan for 2026–2030, adopted by the government in January 2025. The plan sets out priorities to restore basic services, revive productive sectors and improve living conditions amid constrained fiscal space and elevated security spending.
Food systems reform has taken on added urgency as climate variability intensifies. Recurrent droughts, erratic rainfall and land degradation have reduced yields and heightened competition over land and water, particularly in agro-pastoral zones. These pressures have contributed to displacement and localised conflict, amplifying the economic costs of insecurity. For the state, the result has been rising expenditure on food assistance and rural stabilisation at the same time as revenues remain under pressure.
The new programme builds on earlier national initiatives aimed at reducing these vulnerabilities. Authorities launched the African Programme for Integrated Climate Risk Management, Burkina Faso component (GIRCA-BF), in 2024 as a six-year effort to strengthen resilience and food and water security for smallholder farmers.
In parallel, the Agro-pastoral and Fisheries Offensive (OAPH) 2023–2025 was introduced as an operational framework to fast-track priority actions in agriculture and livestock during the transition period, with the stated objective of achieving food and nutritional sovereignty.
What distinguishes the UN-backed programme is its scale and its attempt to integrate climate adaptation, food security and stabilisation within a single financing and implementation structure. By emphasising food systems rather than isolated projects, the initiative recognises that production, markets, nutrition and risk management are interlinked. Improved storage and processing can reduce post-harvest losses, while more resilient value chains can cushion rural incomes against climate shocks and price volatility.
For Burkina Faso, food imports and emergency relief have become recurring budget items, limiting room for investment in infrastructure and human capital. Strengthening domestic food systems could, over time, reduce import dependence and smooth public spending by lowering the frequency and scale of crisis responses.
The programme’s alignment with the national development plan is intended to improve coherence between donor financing and government priorities, an issue that has complicated past interventions.
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