According to recent data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 1.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are registered in Burkina Faso as of September 30, 2022. Of this population, 23% are women and 60% are children. This is mainly due to the increase in violence, a very degraded security context in peripheral areas of the country and the increase in humanitarian needs.
Within the framework of the project for the promotion of a social environment conducive to the integration of internally displaced women in Burkina Faso, the Alliance for Responsible Mining, with financial support from the French Embassy in Burkina Faso and in partnership with AFEMIB, is moving forward implementing activities in the regions of the Plateau Central and the Center-North.
The project started in August 2022 with a double launching ceremony in Mogtédó (Plateau Central) and Korsimoro (Center-North), where public authorities, civil society organizations, representatives of selected mining sites, representatives of communities and internally displaced women (IDW) participated in the socialization of the project’s objectives and strategy to strengthen exchanges between stakeholders directly and facilitate project implementation in the affected areas.
These ceremonies were followed by a series of training sessions for the benefit of 150 women and 58 representatives of other stakeholders directly involved in the project, on the following topics:
1. Trainings in poultry and small ruminant breeding with the objective of showing the importance and the contribution of this activity to the socio-economic life; to train the beneficiaries on animal selection, feeding, the application of sanitary and hygiene protocols; and to train the administrative management of the activity. This training was followed by the provision of equipment for poultry and small ruminant farming.
2. Trainings in land access challenges to socialize land management issues in artisanal and small-scale mining communities; conduct a diagnostic study to identify the nature and types of land tenure issues related to IDPs, especially women; and identify methods of land access for women, highlighting methods of securing land to ensure social cohesion in host communities.
3. Trainings in business management in order to guide participants from the conception of the idea of the productive project to its materialization; addressing the necessary administrative and accounting management tools; and training them on the stages of setting up a business.
4. Trainings in community conflict management in order to strengthen the capacities of the departmental observatories and the population of the Mogtedo and Korsimoro communes in terms of prevention, community conflict management and addressing the vulnerability of the displaced population.
With these actions, ARM and AFEMIB are committed to social transformation in the mining communities of two regions affected by the phenomenon of displacement, with the aim of raising awareness to the local population on the importance of social cohesion and inclusive local development in a degraded security context. Besides, our work also seeks to listen to these women and provide alternatives to alleviate their situation, so that they appropriate the necessary tools to build an economic activity and generate the capacity to make it a sustainable source of income.