Global Reach

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa where more than two-thirds of its estimated 21 million people live in rural villages.

Burkina Faso has a shortage of qualified healthcare providers; studies estimate there are as few as 10 physicians per 100,000 people and 41 nurses and 13 midwives per 100,000 people. The modern contraceptive prevalence rate for all women ages 15 to 49 is 27.6%. The maternal mortality ratio is 320 deaths per 100,000 live births. Of women ages 15 to 49, approximately 20% have experienced physical violence.

Our Work in Burkina Faso

For nearly 20 years, EngenderHealth has been working to expand access to high-quality family planning (FP) and abortion services in Burkina Faso. Our work in the country helps to strengthen health facilities and health information systems, ensure youth-friendly services, improve policy and service environments for comprehensive abortion care (CAC), and develop the ability of civil society organizations to advocate for expanded access to safe abortion services.

Since March 2020, EngenderHealth has worked in 35 facilities through the Improving SRH through Health System Strengthening in Burkina Faso to support the training of 580 healthcare providers in FP (including postpartum and postabortion FP); safe abortion; and gender, youth, and social inclusion. We have supported the provision of FP to 6,285 clients; 5,919 clients in the immediate postpartum period (within 48 hours of delivery); and 2,100 postabortion and CAC clients.

Through the My Body, My Choices, My Rights program EngenderHealth is working in partnership with the government, international, and local partners to improve access to safe, high-quality abortion care to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality related to unsafe abortions. The program takes a human rights-based approach to abortion care and supports women and girls to exercise their agency and make decisions about their own health and wellbeing to realize their full sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). It focuses on supporting young women and adolescent girls as well as women and girls who are internally displaced or living in host communities.

Partnering to Advance SRHR and Eliminate GBV in West and Central Africa built on the work of our previous program to advance Advocacy on Comprehensive Abortion Care in West Africa, which sought to improve CAC in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire. Building on these countries’ commitments to the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), our work aimed to build regional support for safe abortion among key stakeholders and to facilitate access to CAC by informing women about their rights and access to services.

EngenderHealth led the Agir Pour La Planification Familiale (AgirPF) program, USAID’s flagship FP program in West Africa in collaboration with Avenir Health, Camber, Collective, and other partners in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Niger, and Togo. AgirPF sought to save lives by increasing access to and use of FP services in urban and peri-urban areas, by enabling women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years old) to make, and voluntarily act on, informed decisions.

Photo: “Ouagadougou” by Thierry Draus, licensed under CC BY 2.0.