General Budget Support to Burkina Faso (2013-2016)

Based on the encouraging performance of the Government of Burkina Faso in implementing the Poverty Reduction Strategy ("Stratégie de croisssance accélérée et de développement durable", SCADD) reforms aiming to enhance economic growth and to fight poverty, and considering the willingness of this Government to go ahead with the reforms, a new, eighth general budget support agreement with Burkina Faso for the years 2013-2016 is arranged. This operation will continue pursuing and accelerating the reforms, relieving the budgetary constraint imposed by external shocks such as the global financial crisis, climate changes (floods, drought).

The development objective of the Budget Support program in Burkina Faso is to contribute to poverty reduction in its entire dimension. The financial contribution provides the necessary fiscal space for increased core public spending program. The program is explicitly aimed at addressing major challenges such as translating economic growth into poverty reduction, increasing financing of development objectives through domestic resources, strengthening financial management capacity, transparency in the management of natural resource wealth and further progressing in decentralization as well as strengthening capacities for efficient delivery of services at local level.

Poverty reduction: Budget Support plays an important factor to support a pro-poor orientation of the government policies. The operation is in alignment with the SCADD startegy aiming at among other things promoting growth and reducing economic vulnerability and investing in human capital and social protection to increase economic resilience. Fiscal consolidation and macroeconomic stability: By focusing on the budget, policy dialogue between development partners and the government fosters the consolidation of public finances. By closely monitoring the on-track situation of the ongoing IMF-programs, macroeconomic stability is ensured. Through additional financing increased fiscal space is created, which is used to safeguard pro-poor spending. Economic governance: Budget Support is an instrument to support the improvement of economic governance over the long run.

Principaux résultats attendus:  

Policy Dialogue: Through policy dialogue the Government of Burkina Faso and development partners agree on development goals and priorities as well as on performance targets and operational procedures. Switzerland focuses especially on Public Financial Management and Good Governance issues. Catalog of Reforms: Apart from an overall assessment on the macroeconomic situation and issues of special attention, performance is measured on the basis of the Performance Assessment Framework - a matrix with many relevent process and outcome indicators. The indicators are focusing on measuring the contribution to inclusive growth in alignment with the SCADD. Technical Assistance: SECO provides technical assistance as an integral component of the GBS-package. In Burkina Faso SECO contributes to the tax administration reform in order to increase capacities for domestic resource mobilization and to the enhancement of the capacity of the Supreme Audit Institution (Cour des comptes).

Principaux résultats antérieurs:  

An Independent Evaluation finalized in 2014 concludes that Budget Support has been in general fundamentally successful. Budget Support compared favourably with other aid modalities in terms of predictability and transaction costs and made a positive contribution to harmonisation of aid and mutual accountability. Budget Support was found to have an important influence on macroeconomic management, including Public Financial Management. The considerable volume of the Budget Support increased the fiscal space to increase development spending (allocation to priority sectors) without recourse to foreign borrowing. Strong achievements of Budget Support are also found in the education sector. However, achievements in terms of accountability and good governance are limited.

Phase 8 01.01.2013 - 31.12.2016   (Active)