Burkina Faso

This section provides background information about social protection in Burkina Faso summarising the findings of the project as regards social security, social assistance and health provision. It also outlines the country's employment scenario and the major employment-related policy initiatives.

Social Protection Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso ranks among the poorest countries of the world with its per capita income (in constant 2000 prices) of around US$270. The country had approximately 16.5 million inhabitants in 2010, with a rapid population growth rate of around 3% per year, which translates into a youthful demographic structure. The majority resides in rural areas, where around a half live with an income under the poverty line. In urban areas, poverty incidence is markedly less - only about 20%. Yet, while poverty has been reduced in Burkina Faso in recent years, extreme forms of deprivation persist.

The government has sought to address these challenges through public social protection interventions. In 2009, it made a request for ILO technical assistance to expand access to basic social services and transfers and to build a Social Protection Floor in the country. This vision was also included in the 2010 National Employment Policy. Advancing towards a comprehensive social protection system will require tackling challenges such as limited coverage of social programmes and the necessity of developing a national social protection policy.

The country faces notable challenges in its efforts to equalise access to social protection. The current system guarantees a relatively better coverage for the minority of workers employed in the formal economy. Yet, gaps remain also with respect to these formal workers, as only a half of them contribute to social security. Social assistance projects and programmes, on the other hand, support the poor, a majority of which are in the informal economy. Nonetheless, the coverage of the diverse poverty reduction and social assistance schemes targeted at the poor is fragmented and the duration of the schemes often limited.

The Burkinabé social protection budget, comprising investments made by public and private actors, is detailed in the table below. As the table shows, the total investment was around 7% of GDP in 2007-2008. Around half of this total was allocated to health care.

Total investment in social protection in Burkina Faso as % of GDP, 2007-2008

Source: ILO, Social Security Department (forthcoming), "Revue de Dépenses et de la Performance de la Protection Sociale (SPER) au Burkina Faso"

This 2008 social budget was financed from various sources. The government covered 36% (which includes budget support funds from donors). This public investment is equivalent to 2.4% of the 2008 GDP and 11% of that year's total government budget. The sum is slightly less than the average of close to 4% of GDP that low-income countries invest in social provisioning globally (see: ILO, 2010: World Social Security Report: p.82). Aid agencies and donors funded another 36% of the Burkinabé total social spending, and 28% came from the nation's two formal workers' social security schemes CNSS and CARFO. Local-level authorities covered a modest 0.03% of the total. These figures indicate that  Burkina Faso's social programmes depend to an important extent on foreign aid. This has to be understood in the context where continuous shocks (e.g. food and fuel price hikes, natural hazards, etc.) have strained the government's finances.

These financial constraints are compounded by the challenge of administering social programmes in an efficient and effective way. For instance, currently, the administration is fragmented, as the different ministries involved (e.g. Ministry of Social Action and National Solidarity, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Economy and Finance) do not always achieve a full coordination of their efforts. Also, the administrative costs of programmes are elevated, and there is no comprehensive monitoring mechanism that would allow reviewing wether programmes meet their goals. Lastly, there is no clear long-term strategy in place that would guide social protection efforts towards common goals. The Government is working to establish the National Social Protection Strategy to tackle this issue.

Social Security

Burkina Faso's social security for formal and public sector workers is rooted in the French colonial administration's efforts to protect its employees. This system was strenghtened and the coverage and scope of its benefits strengthened after Burkina Faso became independent in 1960. Today, the system provides social security for formal workers and civil servants. This social security absorbs a significant share of the country's social investment: pensions alone absorbed around 15% of the 2008 total social budget.

There are two social security schemes in Burkina Faso. The National Social Security Fund (Caisse Nationale de Sécurité Sociale, CNSS) serves private sector workers, and the Autonomous Public Service Pension Fund (Caisse Autonome de Retraite des Fonctionnaires, CARFO) caters to civil servants. The two arrangements are  overseen by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Security.

The National Social Security Fund (CNSS) was established in 1955. It is a public social insurance fund responsible for managing the social security benefits of formal workers covered by the Labour Code and collective agreements. It covers six contingencies, providing: family and maternity allowances; insurance against occupational hazards (injuries and illness); and old-age, disability and survivor’s pensions. These are financed through workers’ and employers’ contributions. In 2009, the scheme had a little more than 200 000 active contributors, which amounts to a small fraction of the nation's total work force.

Coverage of the National Social Security Fund CNSS (active contributors), 2006-2009

Source: Administrative records of CNSS, 2010

The Autonomous Public Service Pension Fund (CARFO) is the civil servants' social security scheme. It provides old-age, disability and survivor’s pensions, temporary and permanent disability benefits, medical care and compensation for deaths due to work-related causes. Also, civil servants may receive family allowances financed by the government from the national budget.

Neither of these two social security systems provide health insurance or health services for workers. The promotion of health in the work place is the mandate of the Office for Workers’ Health (Office de santé des travailleurs), which is however weakly operational.

The total coverage of these two schemes is low. Indicative of this is that in recent years only around 2.5% of all workers above retirement age have been receiving an old-age pension, as the following table reveals.

Social security coverage in Burkina Faso, 2000-2007

Source: ILO Social Security Inquiry

The issue of coverage must be understood in the context of a highly informalised labour market: As many as 94% of  workers work in the informal economy, which makes their incorporation into the existing social security schemes challenging. To address the coverage gap, CNSS has since 2006 offered self-employed and informal workers the opportunity to pay voluntary contributions and in this way obtain social security coverage.

Social Assistance

Non-contributory social assistance schemes aimed primarily at poverty reduction were allocated 22.8% of the 2008 social budget. Assistance is provided through a number of programs and pilot projects in Burkina Faso, which are, nevertheless, fragmented, as there is no single agency or overall strategy to guide them.

The World Bank (2011) calculated that social safety nets reached close to 18% of the total population in 2009.Considering that in 2008, an estimated 40% of the population lived in poverty,  it is evident that not all poor households have access to crucial non-contributory social benefits. Also, the value of the benefits provided is low, which can reduce their impact on poverty levels.

Social assistance initiatives have traditionally been largely dependent on donor funding. According to the World Bank study on safety nets, in 2009, donor funds covered 76% of all safety net costs. This dependence can be a negative factor when trying to  work towards more coherent and sustainable social assistance. Donor funds sustain especially nutrition-related programmes, while the government prioritises e.g. fuel subsidies.  

The World Bank study analysed Burkina Faso's social assistance programmes based on a five-fold categorisation. The first category comprises cash and near-cash transfers, such as the cash transfers piloted since 2008 and the food voucher schemes that cover up to 30 000 families. The second category refers to food transfers, such as sale of subsidised cereals, food distribution to the poor and school feeding, which took up close to 70% of all social safety net spending in the period 2005-2009. The third type of programme are universal food and fuel subsidies. The subsidisation of food has been interrupted, but fuel continues to be subsidised by the government. The fourth category comprises public works whereby the poor work to build infrastructure and receive a cash or in-kind transfer in return. Public works programmes are mostly implemented by NGOs and foreign donors and they are likely to form a central social protection mechanism also in the years to come. The fifth category comprises fee waivers for basic services, e.g. maternal health care for poor women, which have been influential in improving health indicators in the country.

Health

Around half of the the Burkinabé social budget, or around 3.5% of GDP, is allocated to health care. The Government's National Health Policy from the year 2000 specifies the major national policies in this regard. This policy is accompanied by a National Health Development Plan, the 2001-2010 edition of which promoted the access to affordable health services through, for instance, subsidies and health care fee waivers. Access has improved, positively impacting health indicators, especially infant and child mortality. Donor support to the health sector has been significant. Yet, overall, health protection coverage continues to be low.

Key health indicators in Burkina Faso

Source: WHO, 2010: Burkina Faso Health Statistics Profile, available at: http://www.afro.who.int/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=7081&Itemid=2593

As there is no health insurance system with wide coverage, formal and public sector workers are generally in the most privileged position in terms of health care.  The state may partially reimburse public sector workers' health expenses. In addition, many workers form part of mutual health funds, which are informal savings arrangements in which members pay a quota to a common fund from which they then can draw in case of an illness or other contingency. Yet, it is to be noted that these funds do not always cover the entirety of health care and related costs. Lastly, some enterprises administer company health funds that can be set up in partnership with a commercial insurance company.

Other important components of the Burkinabé health system are the health micro insurance schemes that emerged in the 1990s with the help of NGOs and donors. These arrangements guard against catastrophic health expenses, but they  cover a small fraction (in 2003 around 3%) of the population.

In some regions, a prepayment system has been tested, whereby poor people pay a yearly lump sum to a health facility and receive health care when needed, with reduced health care fees. Also, UNICEF has been involved in piloting schemes which promote sharing of health costs among a range of public and private actors.

To help poor people overcome access barriers, the government has implemented several fee exemption schemes in recent years. In 2006, the government introduced subsidies covering 80% of the cost of emergency obstetric and neonatal care, and the full cost for the poorest women. This has a total cost of 30 billion CFA francs, or US$63.9 million, over the period 2006-2015.As a result, access, particularly among the poorest, has increased. There have been exemptions also for the costs of meningitis, measles and malaria treatment, as well as for preventive care for children and mothers.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security embarked in 2008 on an endeavour to introduce a  health insurance system that would cover the whole population. It carried out a study of the feasibility of the proposed insurance, which covers basic public health services and essential drugs. Preparatory activities for phasing in the insurance began in 2011.

Employment in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso's GDP per capita has been growing relatively strongly in recent years. It increased from about US$214 to US$260 (in constant 2000 prices) between 1995 and 2007. This growth has been led by industry, mainly mining and construction, and services. Nevertheless, similar growth rates have not been achieved in the agricultural sector - traditionally the most important sector in terms of employment.

Burkina Faso's economy continues to be vulnerable to several factors, such as natural catastrophes such as the 2009 and 2010 floods; cotton and other raw materials' world price fluctuations; and political upheavals such as the recent political conflict in Ivory Coast.

Real GDP growth and per capita GDP in Burkina Faso (USD at constant 2000 prices)

Table extracted from: AfDB and OECD (2008), "African Economic Outlook: Burkina Faso", p. 167

Also, in spite of the recent rapid growth, the general income level remains very low in comparison with other countries in West Africa as well as with Africa more generally. This is illustrated by the figure above.

Importantly, the positive impact of this growth on poverty reduction through improvements in the quality and quantity of jobs remains to be seen.  

Around 80% of the nation's workforce are employed in agriculture, as can be expected considering the low rate of urbanisation in the country. Public sector employment and formal jobs are concentrated in towns and cities, comprising no more than 200 000 employees. Therefore, out of the 20% of the labour force that are non-agricultural workers, as many as 70% work in the informal economy (AfDB and OECD, 2008).

Particularly vulnerable types of employment, such as unpaid family work and self-employment, are predominant. Despite a significant decline over the past years, around half of the working population is actually unpaid family workers and apprentices. Also, approximately 35% of the employed are self-employed farm workers, and their share has grown in recent years.

Women and youth are particularly disadvantaged in the Burkinabé labour market. A negligible fraction of employed women, 3.7%,are in "modern", i.e. formal or public sector, employment - against 10.6% of employed men. Most women work in agriculture and an important share are unpaid family workers.

The youth have difficulties to access formal jobs: only 3.9% of young workers are in the formal sector. Nearly 85% of them work in agriculture, 7.3% in the urban informal economy and 4.1% in the rural informal economy. Positive news for the youth is that the share of out-of-work and out-of-school youth has declined over the past years.

Unemployment is concentrated in the urban areas (the unemployment rate is 8.6% in urban, while it is 2.2% in the rural areas). Unemployment affects more the women, the young and the more educated, whose unemployment rates have also risen over the past decade. Considering that Burkina Faso's general level of schooling is low, it is surprising that as many as 22% of workers with secondary education are out of work.

While unemployment is an urban challenge, the rural labour market is characterised by  underemployment. Even though visible underemployment has decreased significantly in recent years, in 2007, a quarter of the nation's employed and around a half of the workers in rural areas were not working as many hours as they could or wished. This translates into lower earnings.

In addition, the quality of jobs is generally low. While an enormous share of jobs are in agriculture, the sector produces only 25% of the GDP (AfDB and OECD, 2008). This may be  indicative of low labour productivity and low wages. The high rate of underemployment in agriculture also suggests that earnings are low. Also, the high level of informality reveals that a significant segment of the population is unprotected by labour laws and outside of the reach of formal social security.

Moreover, the working poor (that is to say, workers living in households with per capita expenditures less than the poverty line) account for 45% of the employed, and nearly half of all rural workers belong to this category. Poverty rates are higher among women, but they have increased also among male workers and in urban areas. These rates are found in the table below.

Share of working poor by place of residence and sex (15-65+) (% occupied population)


Source: INSD (EP 1998 et EBCVM 2003)

Despite these challenges, Burkina Faso is committed to the task of fomenting employment. For instance, the National Employment Policy (NEP) was adopted and the National Council Employment and Vocational Training (CNEPF) established to take charge of the implementation of the policy. The NEP promotes decent work as a key to achieve poverty reduction and provides a vision and a framework for intervening in the supply and demand of employment and the functioning of the labour market institutions.

One of the main instruments of the NEP are the employment funds, the first ones of which were established in response to the Structural Adjustment Programmes and economic shocks that resulted in job losses in the 1990s. Because unemployment and underemployment persisted, the funds also remain. They support vulnerable groups, such as youth and informal workers by providing credit accompanied by training, business consulting or other forms of support aimed at ensuring beneficiaries' integration into the labor market. There are specific funds for workers in the informal sector, for youth and for vocational training, among others.

Another central instrument for implementing the NEP are public works or employment-generation schemes that hire poor labourers to work in employment-intensive infrastructure projects. These programmes provide a source of income while contributing to the development of infrastructure crucial for social and economic development.
 

This section is for the most part (unless otherwise cited) based on the Social Protection Expenditure and Performance Review for Burkina Faso, produced in the project:

• ILO, Social Security Department (forthcoming), "Revue de Dépenses et de la Performance de la Protection Sociale (SPER) au Burkina Faso"

It also draws from the following documents:

• AfDB and OECD (2008), "African Economic Outlook: Burkina Faso"
• ILO, Social Security Department (2010), The World Social Security Report 2010/11: Providing coverage in times of crisis and beyond
• Malgoubri Kyendrebeogo, M.E.; Ouiminga, I.; Louis dit Guérin, O. (2011), "Building a Social Protection Floor - Burkina Faso"
• World Bank (2011), “Burkina Faso: Social safety nets”,
• World Health Organization (2010), "Burkina Faso Health Statistics Profile"

These and other studies and documents produced in the project may be accessed here.

Further information on social protection in Burkina Faso available in the country profile in the ILO GESS platorm.

Workshops organised in Burkina Faso in the framework of the EU/ILO project (incl. material)

Technical workshop on the Social Protection Expenditure and Performance Review (SPER) and the employment funds study in Burkina Faso, 6-7 October 2011, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso