IDEA was engaged in a long-term country project in Burkina Faso from 1996 – 2004. The focus of the project was on supporting the evolving democratisation process in the country primarily by facilitating a dialogue based democracy assessment, led by a contact group of Burkinabé stakeholders from a broad variety of organisations and professions. The Democracy Assessment reviewed the state of democracy in the country and defined a democratic reform agenda which was printed in 1998 as a handbook titled “Democracy in Burkina Faso”.
IDEA worked to disseminate the results of the assessment and facilitate further dialogue on democratic reform throughout the country.
In 2000, the Democracy Assessment Contact Group identified a need to consolidate itself formally into a nationally based organisation. The NGO established is called the Centre for Democratic Governance (CDG). Click here to link to CDG’s website
Since then IDEA has been working closely with CDG, initially providing technical support and building capacity inside the organisation and later as a partner in implementing a variety of activities in Burkina Faso including;.
Constitutional Reform in Burkina Faso
Capacity-building training of political parties
Facilitating debate on electoral system reform
Capacity-building training of election administrators
The Centre for Democratic Governance has continued to develop as a strong national organisation and has expanded its activities as a regional organisation in West Africa as well.
While IDEA’s Burkina Faso Project concluded in 2004 IDEA continues to be engaged in Burkina Faso within the framework of the West Africa Programme. All activities IDEA is engaged in Burkina Faso and Francophone West Africa are conducted in partnership with CDG. Current activities in Burkina Faso are;
Political Parties: Burkina Faso is included as part of regional survey of political parties currently being conducted in West Africa. The surveys examine the internal and external environments in which political parties operate and engage political parties in dialogue at the national and regional level.
