World Bank approves $215.9 million for Burkina Faso's rice and maize value chains

On 10 March 2026 the World Bank approved a project worth $215.9 million (about CFAF 118.7 billion) to develop the agricultural sector of Burkina Faso, the landlocked West African country. According to the Bank's press release, issued from the capital Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso Agricultural Transformation Project is in line with national priorities on food security, job creation and the promotion of the private sector.

The project will focus on priority agricultural value chains, including rice and maize. It will support productivity improvements, the modernisation of processing infrastructure and better access to markets. It will also help address the financing constraints that hold back private investment and the adoption of technology.

The release said attention would be paid to the inclusion of women and young people, to strengthen their participation in agricultural value chains and to support the creation of sustainable jobs in rural areas.

"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.

The project will be implemented in close collaboration with national authorities, private-sector actors and decentralised stakeholders, and will cover four of the country's seventeen regions. The release did not name them. The zones were selected for their agricultural potential, the presence of priority value chains such as rice and maize, and the potential to scale up work already carried out under the World Bank-financed Agriculture Resilience and Competitiveness Project (PReCA).

PReCA's project appraisal document, dated 9 August 2019, proposed an IDA credit of EUR 44.0 million (US$50.0 million equivalent) and an IDA Scale-up Facility credit of EUR 131.8 million (US$150.0 million equivalent). Its objective was to increase agricultural productivity and market access for small producers and small and medium agribusiness entrepreneurs in selected value chains in the project areas.

Burkina Faso borders Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south and Ivory Coast to the southwest. In the 2019 PReCA appraisal, the World Bank wrote that farming and livestock occupied about 86 percent of the country's workforce and were the main source of income for the poorest people. Most crops, such as millet, sorghum and maize, are grown under rainfed conditions with low yields, while rice, onions and tomatoes are grown under full or partial irrigation in bottomlands.

The same document said only about 12 percent of agricultural commodities were processed before being sold, and that agriculture received only eight percent of commercial bank lending, 4.2 percent of it for cotton. It listed a lack of acceptable collateral and the weak organisation of value chains other than cotton among the obstacles to credit for smallholders.

The FAO's country brief of 19 June 2025 put Burkina Faso's 2024 aggregate cereal production, by official estimate, at 6.1 million tonnes, about 20 percent above average. The country's cereals include maize, sorghum, millet, rice and fonio. The brief also noted that ongoing conflict continued to severely affect food security.

Photo: Africa Rice Center / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources: World Bank, World Bank (PReCA project appraisal document, 2019), FAO GIEWS, Wikipedia