| June 17, 2005—Meeting with leaders from government, business, rural communities and civil society during a densely scheduled two-day visit, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has commended Burkina Faso's record of steady economic growth over the past decade, along with strong management in the crucial cotton sector. These, he said, together with heightened commitment from the world’s wealthy nations, promise continuing gains in poverty reduction here. But Wolfowitz also expressed concern over the difficulty in translating overall economic growth into measurable improvement in Burkina’s social indicators, which remain among the lowest in the world, with two out of five children malnourished and not attending school, and only 26% literacy among women. While touring one of Burkina Faso's cotton ginning companies, Wolfowitz responded to queries about subsidies to farmers in developed countries that make it harder for African countries to compete in global markets for agricultural products.  | | Paul Wolfowitz greets workers at Sofitex, the company at the heart of Burkina's economically crucial cotton sector (Photo by Ben-Idriss Zoungrana). |
“The key to addressing the problem of cotton subsidies—which obviously hurt farmers in Burkina Faso and other African countries—is to tackle agricultural subsidies across the board” he said, adding that the World Bank will remain a “strong voice” for significant reductions in agricultural subsidies through the Doha Round of global trade talks. The importance of women Throughout the visit, President Wolfowitz also stressed the centrality of encouraging women’s participation in economic activities and in decision-making. Speaking to a sprawling community gathering at Kadomba—a village in southwest Burkina that has benefited from a Bank-supported small dam project—he said, “there is no way a country can really develop if half of the population, the women, aren’t participating.” Women have played a central role in setting priorities and implementing projects covered by the community development program that benefited Kadomba and Ramatoulaye, a neighboring village the President also visited.  | | Wolfowitz talks with a young mother in Ouagadougou market about women's literacy and childcare. (Photo by Kevin Kellems). |
During his second day in the country, Wolfowitz met with women’s groups at the Bank Group office and visited Saint Camille Hospital, the largest health center for maternal and early childhood health. He praised the staff for taking a holistic approach that “thinks about mothers when they’re pregnant, when they’re giving birth and after they’ve given birth.” The hospital also helps implement a national strategy of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and is active in a Bank-supported program to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to those who test positive for the AIDS virus.
Wolfowitz also met with the President Blaise Campaore and discussed the challenge of maintaining a strong performance, despite economic difficulties stemming from the drop in world cotton prices and the drop in the relative value of the U.S. dollar. It’s expected that Burkina’s comparatively strong rate of growth—running at more than 5% on average for the last decade—will decline to about 3.5% this year. The two presidents also focused on the broadly positive impact of Burkina Faso’s far-reaching community-led development program. Citing the country’s relative stability and solidarity, and recent gains in citizen participation, Wolfowitz said that “national unity is more precious that oil or diamonds” when it comes to a country’s development prospects.  | Wolfowitz with a woman from Ramatoulaye. A community-driven development program has led to a new well with safe drinking water, improved forest management, and a cereal bank to help citizens maintain nutrition through periods when food supplies run low. (Photo by Ben-Idriss Zoungrana). |
Incentives for students, praise for parents During a visit to the Nabonswende School, a private school located in a poor area in Ouagadougou, Wolfowitz praised the public-private collaboration that gave birth to the school. But he underscored the role of poor parents who have born the costs of tuitions, which amount to the equivalent of about $100 a year. “Above all,” he said, “I thank those parents who have sacrificed so that you (students) can have a better future,” adding that his own family has benefited from parents who similarly placed a high value on education. He went on to tell the students, faculty, and community supporters of the school that his grandparents moved from Poland to the U.S. without money, a command of the English language, or any meaningful economic prospects. His father, he said, “studied hard and worked hard and became a university professor.” Leaving the country for Rwanda, Wolfowitz said he would long remember the welcome he received, and reiterated his overarching sense that Africa represents his highest priority. |
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