World Bank supports investment plan for climate-smart agriculture in Burkina Faso

The World Bank in Burkina Faso and the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydro-Agricultural Developments held a workshop on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020, to validate an investment plan for smart agriculture in the face of climate changes in Burkina Faso. The opening ceremony was chaired by the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Lamourdia Thiombiano, representing his minister.

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Challenges of climate change as part of smart agriculture

Smart agriculture, according to Dr. Lamourdia Thiombiano, is agriculture that innovates in the face of new phenomena such as the challenges of climate change, locusts, drought, new diseases such as armyworms, etc. It is therefore important, according to him, to rethink the way in which agriculture must be conducted in order to face these problems, better protect the soil from the risks of erosion and degradation and improve soil health for more sustained productivity.

For Christophe Rockmore, Acting Resident Representative of the World Bank, there is no need to recall that climate change is one of the threats to the planet. As agriculture is considered to be the human activity most dependent on climatic variations, planning means anticipating this threat.

Strategic plan to support investments for climate-smart agriculture

This is what, according to him, has led the World Bank, in its strategic plan 2016-2020, to set the objective of supporting 40 countries, including Burkina Faso, in the development of profiles and investment plans for climate-smart agriculture. He added that the World Bank wants to support Burkina Faso, where agriculture plays a very important role in the production of wealth, to have sustainable investments in agriculture through this plan.

The process of preparing the climate-smart agriculture (CIA) investment plan for Burkina Faso was launched on August 19, 2019, under the African Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change (AAA) Initiative.

Under the African Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change (AAA) Initiative, the World Bank will support climate change resilient landscapes that, through a landscape approach, integrate multiple sectoral initiatives, facilitating linkages and coordination between them. The initiative will mobilize financial and technical resources from multiple sources to assist in the design and implementation of national and regional integrated landscape management strategies.

Under AAA, the World Bank will support resilient landscapes in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and East Africa regions by combining a geographic and a socio-economic approach to land, water and forest management in support of food security and inclusive green growth.

According to Lamourdia Thiombiano, at the kick-off workshop, national experts had identified and validated 10 AIC priority investments needed to strengthen crop resilience and improve yields for nearly 1.7 million direct beneficiaries, helping them adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A workshop for introducing the climate-smart practices

These priority investments were subsequently informed and refined by experts from CIIAT, ICRISAT, and WASCAL, and then categorized into national investments for capacity building, financing, resilience, and climate-smart investments to support the adaptation of agricultural farming systems by introducing climate-smart practices. At the workshop, experts will review these 10 consolidated priority investments, review and analyze the relevance of the information provided, with a view to validating them.

The World Bank’s Resident Representative, Christophe Rockmore, said he was aware that a climate-smart agriculture investment plan requires a good organization for resource mobilization and for its concrete implementation on the ground. This is why he calls for solidarity among the actors concerned to work hand in hand for the success of the project.

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(Featured image by  Li-An Lim via Unsplash)

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