Question Period Note: Canada's international assistance in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is an important recipient of Canadian international assistance. Our aid continues to achieve results and has a positive impact on the lives of Burkinabès.

• In 2017-2018, Canada provided more than $63 million in international assistance to Burkina Faso, with a focus on basic education and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
• In less than 10 years, Canada's support for basic education has helped increase primary school completion rate for girls by 25%.

• In 2019, Canada responded to rising humanitarian needs in Burkina Faso as a result of terrorist and criminal attacks on the civilian population.

• We have provided food assistance, shelter and essential household items, as well as health and protection services via humanitarian partners. Canada will continue to monitor the evolving humanitarian situation and will continue to respond, as appropriate.

Burkina Faso is still one of the poorest countries in the world: more than 40% of the population lives on less than US$1 a day. It ranks very low in human development and gender equality indices, and its fertility and maternal mortality rates remain very high. To meet its many socio-economic challenges, the government of Burkina Faso launched the National Plan for Social and Economic Development 2016-2020 (NPSED).

Since the beginning of 2019, the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso has worsened as a result of the increase of terrorist and criminal attacks on the civilian population and security forces. As of October 11, over 1.5 million people have been affected by the crisis and there were 486,360 internally displaced persons (IDPs) - a steep increase from around 80,000 in January 2019. Hundreds of thousands of affected people in roughly a third of the country (North and East) are struggling to access food, water or medical services; armed violence and insecurity have crippled health and education services, with more than 68 health centres and 1,845 schools forced to shut, affecting more than 800,000 people and 267,000 students respectively. Insecurity and the resulting humanitarian situation are expected to continue to deteriorate and the number of IDPs is expected to increase.

In 2017-18, Canadian international assistance to Burkina Faso totalled $63 million. Canada's development program is in line with its Feminist International Assistance Policy and supports the NPSED. Canada's development program is focused mainly on education, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, combatting sexual and gender-based violence, technical vocational training and agriculture.

To date in 2019, Canada has provided $1.6 million [unannounced] to respond to rapidly increasing humanitarian needs due to insecurity driven population displacements in the northern and eastern regions of Burkina Faso. Canada's humanitarian assistance helps provide food and nutrition assistance, shelter and non-food items, as well as health, protection and coordination services to vulnerable populations in Burkina Faso.

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