How DFID is helping others to connect with women in
business in Burkina Faso
Related pages:  Burkina
Faso ReliefWeb pages | MDG 8: Aid, trade,
growth and global partnership
 A
DFID-supported volunteer organisation and a women's group are helping women in
one of the world's poorest countries to set up and grow their own businesses.
Working with International Service - which receives funding from DFID -
women's group Buayaba has helped more than 400 women in Burkina Faso to access
credit, receive valuable business training and attend literacy lessons.
This is ground-breaking work - Burkina Faso has one of the highest female
illiteracy rates in the world and repressive traditions such as female excision
and forced marriages are widespread.
With no education and no land or money to call their own, women find it hard
to access the credit needed to start a business.
Getting together to develop business
But in 2003, Buayaba - the name means 'let's love one another' - got together
with International Service to help women develop the skills and confidence
needed to set up and manage their own businesses.
Concentrating on some of the country's poorest communities, Buayaba continues
to help women to develop livelihoods in fruit and vegetable cultivation, shea
nut processing, soap-making and other small business ventures.
An example? Meet Fati Manly (pictured above). She is a single mother who has benefited
from the project. When her husband abandoned her, Fati was left with four young
children to support - and things looked bleak. But when Buayaba and
International Service arranged for her to access a £50 loan in 2003, Fati was
able to buy seeds and fences to protect her garden from straying cattle and
pigs.
Two seasons on, Fati is now a successful market gardener, growing a variety
of vegetables throughout the dry and wet seasons. A further £100 loan in 2004
enabled her to extend her plot and to plant 30 more beds.
International
Service website
Producing results
Since the project began in 2003, banks for women have been set up in 14
villages, with more than 400 clients. Wells providing clean water have been dug
in seven communities, and two shea butter production units have been built in
response to the rising demand for shea butter cosmetic products.
Education remains important to the project: women can learn to read and write
in one of ten new literacy centres which have been set up, while community-based
projects are raising awareness of women's issues and rights.
Key facts
- International Service is an international development organisation working
with local groups in Latin America, West Africa and the Middle East to help
reduce poverty and repression.
- DFID provided £4.58million to International Service (2001-2005)
through a Programme
Partnership Agreement with International Service
- DFID has no programme or office in Burkina Faso, but we provide assistance
through the Food Agricultural Organisation and through other international
channels like the European Union
 Back to top
| 
(617
KB)