Address by His Excellency Mr Blaise Compaoré, President of Burkina Faso

Mr President of IFAD,
Presidents of Other Institutions,
IFAD Governors,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed a great pleasure for me to address this twenty-seventh session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Allow me to begin by expressing my deep gratitude to the President of IFAD, Mr Lennart Båge, for the honour bestowed upon my country and upon Africa by inviting me to take part in this important meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

I would like also to commend the officers and senior management of IFAD for their unflagging commitment to promoting solidarity among peoples and to fostering multilateral cooperation to the benefit of the rural poor.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished Participants,

The spectre of poverty that looms so heavily over the developing world serves as a constant reminder of the need to redouble our efforts in order to ensure success in the global fight against rural poverty.

In these early years of the 21st century, poor nations – and especially those in Africa – face a very uncertain future.

Despite Africa’s vast potential and assets in such strategic raw materials as oil, uranium, iron, copper, cocoa, coffee and cotton, coupled with a unique wealth of flora and fauna and a very sizable, young population, it continues to be the poorest among the continents, notwithstanding four decades of numerous development projects and programmes.

A few indicators suffice to show how Africa has continued to lag behind other regions of the world.

In 1960, Africa accounted for 10% of world trade. Today it accounts for only 2%. In 1990-1992, roughly 20% of the world’s undernourished population and 19% of the world’s people living on less than a dollar a day lived in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2015, those percentages are expected to rise to 34% and 46%.

The poor performance of Africa’s agricultural sector stems in large part from the inequalities and inequity that pervade international relations, especially in the global trade of agricultural commodities, where Africa has an almost negligible role in decision-making.

While it is true that the rules and mechanisms established by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to ensure fairer and more equitable trade at the global level were welcomed by all, it is also true that the countries of Africa and other relatively less developed countries have been the object of unequal treatment in the implementation of these rules by WTO member countries.

To align themselves with international rules and standards, the countries of Africa, whose economies are still very fragile, have embarked on adjustments aimed at enhancing their competitiveness and their participation in the global market.

These reforms, undertaken within structural adjustment programmes, have allowed those countries to place their economies on a sound footing and create an enabling internal environment for the development of production sub-sectors that hold potential for sustainable growth.

Regrettably, the positive impact of these reforms on our economies has thus far been virtually canceled out by the fact that a number of WTO member countries have continued to subsidize their agricultural sectors through a variety of means, in direct contradiction of the WTO’s basic objectives.

By way of example, in 2001 alone the wealthy countries – as part of their policies to support agricultural sectors – granted six times more in subsidies to their farmers (USD 311 billion) than they earmarked for development aid (USD 55 billion).

Subsidies given to cotton producers in some WTO member countries exceed 60% of Burkina Faso’s total gross domestic product.

Obviously, such practices give the farming sectors of wealthy countries an unfair and uncompetitive advantage over developing nations such as ours.

These subsidies have triggered negative economic and social shocks in many African nations, although most harshly in those where cotton production is a strategic element of national development policies and poverty reduction programmes.

The livelihood of over 10 million Western and Central Africans depends directly on cotton production, and several million more are affected indirectly by the price distortions that production and export subsidies for this commodity create on the global market.

Subsidies to producers in the northern hemisphere artificially inflate the supply on international markets and push export prices down.

To cite an example, in 2001 Burkina Faso lost 1% of its gross domestic product and 12% of its export revenue to cotton subsidies.

Against such a backdrop, we – the leaders of our countries and our peoples – are duty-bound to rethink our strategies and methodologies if we are to improve the performance of our economies and attain the development objectives that we ourselves have set for the third millennium.

The lingering doubts and uncertainty that loom over us as we embark on this new century must be dispelled so we can move ahead with confidence and resolve. To do so, leaders around the world need to move beyond complacency and show their courage and determination by decrying the skewed distribution of the benefits of growth between rich and poor countries, and strongly condemn the inappropriate use of mankind’s wealth to fuel the industry of war and destruction.

When our nations created IFAD over 25 years ago, the fight against hunger and rural poverty stood out as the largest challenge to mankind. Today, 25 years later, it remains every bit as much a challenge.

While the daily food requirements of over 900 million people (including 200 million children) are left unmet each day, a number of OECD countries are subsidizing their farmers to stop producing food or to stifle agriculture among peasant farmers in the southern hemisphere.

In Burkina Faso, the rural sector accounts for roughly 40% of gross domestic product and over 70% of the country’s export revenue, and employs approximately 85% of the economically active population.

Mindful of this situation, over the past decade the Government has launched a series of structural and sectoral reforms to lay a new foundation for sustainable economic growth, raise the standard of living of all Burkinabes and foster a strong, competitive agricultural sector.

The progress made thus far has been noteworthy, thanks to the efforts of the Government with support from its partners and to the courage and hard work of the rural population.

Despite these advances, the country’s economic foundations remain fragile. The economy lacks competitiveness and is highly dependent on external resources.

To address these serious constraints, my Government recently adopted a new rural development strategy to serve as the cornerstone of the national economy.

Rural development, which includes ensuring food security as one of its main components, is viewed in Burkina Faso as an integral part of human security.

Guided by this overarching principle and bearing in mind our past experience and our potential, we have placed agricultural production at the core of our rural development policy. The policy’s main thrusts are structured around the following objectives:

• Ensure food security by creating an enabling environment for universal access to an adequate and balanced food supply;
• Significantly reduce poverty by tapping productive potential, boosting family incomes and creating new job opportunities in the rural milieu;
• Effectively ensure the supply of drinking water to all citizens of Burkina Faso;
• Match production increases to market demands;
• Promote sustainable development through rational natural-resource management; and
• Improve the economic situation of rural women and young people.

The launching and success of this strategy presupposes a strong political will but also the support of the international community. I call upon you to back us in pursuing the objectives of this ambitious programme.

This forum affords me an opportunity to thank, once again, all our development partners for their unflagging support of my country’s development efforts, especially IFAD, which in 20 years of cooperation has invested over USD 100 million in the rural development of Burkina Faso.

Indeed, IFAD’s work in Burkina Faso has benefited many spheres of activity.

I wish to acknowledge the crucial role played by IFAD these past decades in fostering economic development of the rural poor by helping to make their work more productive, formulating strategic frameworks for poverty reduction and implementing important programmes for intensification and diversification. I also wish to acknowledge that many poor countries are now calling on IFAD to fulfil its role downstream as well.

Many unique opportunities for business and productivity gains exist downstream of agricultural commodity production, such as processing, storage and marketing, and can help to boost the incomes of rural residents and bring them into the market.

Conditions need to be created for a partnership that will allow national operators to benefit from technical innovations and the knowledge they need in order to modernize and mainstream their activities into modern marketing circuits.

I therefore invite IFAD, as part of its efforts to strengthen its work in poor countries, to set aside a portion of its portfolio to finance economic activities aimed at the processing and value-enhancement of local products that I am convinced hold potential for improving the competitiveness of poor countries on the global market.

In a world where the future belongs undeniably to the big players, our nations must look beyond national interests and work towards better integration of their economies.

On the African continent, and especially in the majority of countries that lie south of the Sahara, the economic crisis has engendered grave distortions that pose a constant threat to the future.

The numerous difficulties facing these countries, still in the throes of political and economic changes, clearly show that the prerequisites for peace and stability of nations reside first and foremost in balanced development that can ensure, inter alia, food security for the population while providing the necessary tools for them to rise out of poverty and underdevelopment.

Poverty and food insecurity are recurrent scourges not just in Africa but around the world and need to be eradicated without delay if we are to uphold the respect of human rights, peace and democracy.

The condition sine qua non for meeting the challenge of this century is the consensus already secured at the Millennium Summit and embodied in the Millennium Declaration. One of the declaration’s main objectives is to halve, by the year 2015, the number of persons suffering from hunger and poverty in the world.

A second condition concerns the specific actions to be undertaken in the fight against poverty.

Recent studies by experts have indicated that each dollar spent on agricultural production generates two dollars for the national economy. This finding confirms the pivotal role that the farming sector should play in the fight against poverty in developing countries. It also confirms the soundness of the decision to create the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the relevance of its mission.

Progress in the agricultural sector of developing countries, especially those in Africa, will hinge upon special attention being given to the following issues:

• rural financing through the development of microfinance and rural credit accessible to rural producers, most of whom are poor;
• land tenure security through access to land for all social strata;
• access to new technologies for poor countries so they can boost agricultural productivity and provide added value to agricultural products through processing and better storage; and
• the fight against HIV/AIDS, which represents an ongoing threat to the rural producers who drive the economies of most poor countries.

I would like to take advantage of this forum to pay special tribute to the women of the world – especially to those who live in rural areas – for their courage, their commitment and their resolve in the fight against hunger and poverty.

In this connection, I would also like to commend IFAD on the gender approach that it pursues in the development programmes it supports.

As we know, women account for over one half the population of virtually all our countries. Their role in production and in reproduction makes them the uncontested protagonists of the family economy.

At the same time, there is no denying the inadequacy – and on occasion the inexistence – of appropriate, effective strategies that reflect women’s true contribution to the development process.

In other words, promoting women in the development process is not just a matter of equity. It is a vital necessity.

Indeed I am convinced that there can be no sustainable development in our countries without the full and total participation of women, especially rural women.

Accordingly, one of the challenges of the third millennium will be to improve the legal, political, economic and social status of women so they may take charge of their own destiny.

Before closing, I would like to express, personally and on behalf of all the hard-working peoples of Africa, my heartfelt thanks to the officers and senior management of IFAD, and to all the cooperation partners who support that institution, for this invitation and the honour bestowed upon the entire African continent, especially Burkina Faso.

Together, let us make IFAD an even more effective instrument in the fight against rural poverty and in cooperation and integration of the economies of our nations.

May IFAD, international cooperation and solidarity among peoples continue to be with us at the forefront of our concerns for years to come!