The World Bank approved on March 10, 2026 a project worth $215.9 million, about CFAF 118.7 billion, to support the development of Burkina Faso's agricultural sector. The Burkina Faso Agricultural Transformation Project follows the country's own priorities of food security, job creation and a stronger private sector.

The project concentrates on priority value chains, rice and maize among them. It will support productivity gains, the modernisation of processing infrastructure and better access to markets, and it will work on the financing constraints that hold back private investment and the adoption of technology on farms and in agro-processing.

Women and young people are singled out. The project is meant to strengthen their participation in agricultural value chains and to support the creation of sustainable jobs in rural areas, where most Burkinabè households earn their living.

"Agriculture remains a central pillar of the Burkinabè economy and a key lever for food security and the resilience of rural populations. Through this project, the World Bank reaffirms its commitment to supporting Burkina Faso in transforming its agricultural sector with a view to more inclusive and sustainable growth," said Hamoud Abdel Wedoud Kamil, World Bank Country Manager for Burkina Faso.

Implementation will be shared with national authorities, private-sector actors and decentralised stakeholders, and the project will cover four of the country's seventeen regions. Those zones were chosen for their agricultural potential, for the presence of the priority chains, rice and maize in particular, and because interventions already under way there through the World Bank-financed Agriculture Resilience and Competitiveness Project (PReCA) can be scaled up.

For a rice or maize producer in one of the four regions, the project's promise is a mill or a warehouse closer to the field, a buyer who can be reached and credit that has been out of reach until now. For the wider sector it is a bet that the two staple crops can carry both food security and rural employment.

Source: World Bank