International Development Grant

Support for Burkina Faso's Basic Education Strategic Development Program

Project Number: CA-3-D000113001

Status: Closed

Country/Region:

Burkina Faso 100.00%

Maximum Contribution: $47,500,000.00

Start Date: December 08, 2017

End Date: January 24, 2022

Duration: 4.1 years

Project Description

This project seeks to support Burkina Faso’s Ministry of National Education and Literacy (MENA) in implementing its Basic Education Strategic Development Program (PDSEB) for the 2017-2022 period. This is done by helping to improve access to quality education for girls and boys aged 6 to 16. The program is also helping to achieve gender parity in terms of access to post primary education and the completion of primary and post primary education. Project activities include the following: (1) building and equipping approximately 4 000 new classrooms each year for primary and post primary schools; (2) increasing the number of qualified teachers to approximately 105 000 by 2021; (3) adopting specific measures to encourage girls’ education; (4) setting up training programs tailored to out of school youth training teachers and implementing new curricula; (5) providing textbooks; (6) strengthening school management committees and MENA’s archiving and internal control systems.

Expected Results

The expected results of this project include the following: (1) narrower gaps in access to education thereby improving gender parity at the primary and post primary levels; (2) improved quality of service delivery for basic education; (3) more effective basic education steering and management practices at all levels of the education system.

Progress & Results Achieved

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2022) include: (1) achieved a pass rate of 41.3% for the 2022 first cycle diploma including 37.9% for girls and a parity index of 0.82 compared with 27.8% in 2021 including 24.4% for girls. This represents an increase of 13.5 percentage points for all pupils and girls respectively; (2) increased of 3.3 percentage points in the pass rate for the Primary School Certificate (PSC) from 60% in 2021 including 58.2% for girls to 63.3% in 2022 including 61.8% for girls. Internally displaced pupils recorded a rate of 56.51% in 2022 for the PSC. Pupils living with disabilities achieved a performance of 63.70%; and (3) obtained a 0.4 percentage point drop in the primary school completion rate for all pupils between 2020 - 2021 with a rate of 62.0% (57.5% for boys and 66.5% for girls) and 2021 - 2022 with a rate of 62.4% (57.3% for boys and 67.7% for girls). However the completion rate for girls is on the rise and has remained higher than for boys over the period. The downward trend observed in certain education quality indicators is due to factors external to the education system notably the security crisis. According to the report on Education in Emergency Situations to December 31 2022 the security crisis led to the closure of 6 253 schools representing 23.88% of Burkina Faso's educational structures. These closures affected 1 076 155 pupils including 523 194 girls and 31 594 teachers including 10 130 women. These efforts enabled 258 516 pupils to be re-enrolled and 6 327 teachers to be redeployed.

Key Information

Executing Agency:
Government of Burkina Faso - Ministry of Economy and Finance

Reporting Organization:
Global Affairs Canada

Program:
WGM Africa

Last Modified:
September 19, 2025

Development Classifications

DAC Sector:

Education policy and administrative management 25%
Primary education 40%
Lower secondary education 32%
Population policy and administrative management 3%

Aid Type: Basket funds/pooled funding

Collaboration: Bilateral

Finance Type: Aid grant excluding debt reorganisation

Selection Mechanism:
Institutional Support

Policy Markers
Level 1 Gender equality
Level 1 Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting)
Level 1 Participatory development and good governance
Level 2 Children's issues
Level 1 Youth Issues
Level 1 Disability
Major Funding (>$1M)
Budget Breakdown
2017-04-01 to 2018-03-31 $47,500,000 CAD
Geographic Information
000
Project Number: CA-3-D000113001