Burkina Faso

In War-Torn Burkina Faso, a Pharmacist Looks for a Cure

• March 10, 2022

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Two-thousand civilian deaths. Countless “forced disappearances.” More than 1.7 million people displaced. The citizens of Burkina Faso have paid a price for the violent jihadist campaign leading up to Jan. 23, when the military seized power, suspended the Constitution and ousted the democratically elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. During …

Africa, Human Rights

Leave a Comment

TOPIC: WOMEN

Representing an African Revolutionary: French Lawyer Defends Thomas Sankara in Assassination Trial

Clair MacDougall

• October 25, 2021

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Anta Guissé has spent a large part of her 20-year career defending people accused of war crimes in countries like Rwanda, Cambodia and the Central African Republic before United Nations-backed international tribunals and the International Criminal Court. Now Guissé, a lawyer based in Paris, has switched to the prosecution in …

Africa, Human Rights, Women

Leave a Comment

TOPIC: WOMEN

The Sole Woman Running for President of Burkina Faso Says: ‘I Will Win’

Clair MacDougall

• November 19, 2020

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Monique Yéli Kam’s war room is not a typical campaign headquarters for a national presidential candidate. A dusty white marquis stands next to stacked blue chairs fanning out to a balcony that leads to a room where teenage boys jostle to play a soccer video game. Upstairs in her apartment, …

Africa, Governance, Women

One Comment

The UN’s 12th Nobel Peace Prize: Our Latest Podcast Episode

Stéphanie Fillion and Kacie Candela

• October 16, 2020

Clair MacDougall was reporting on a follow-up story for PassBlue about Lieut. Col. Carlos Moisés Guillén Alfaro, the first official United Nations peacekeeper to die of Covid-19, when on Oct. 9 she heard that the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and that its executive director, David Beasley, was in town, so she …

Africa, Development, Humanitarian Aid, US-UN Relations

2 Comments

As the Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to the World Food Program, Famines Loom

Clair MacDougall

• October 10, 2020

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program, this year’s just-announced Nobel Peace Prize winner, has warned that the number of people facing starvation could double next year, to 270 million, if the agency is unable to raise enough money to cope with the crisis. “2021 is going to be …

Humanitarian Aid, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

Leave a Comment

THIS WEEK @UN

Mali’s Coup, Belarus’s Protests, Pompeo’s Brief Appearance at the UN

Allison Lecce

• August 22, 2020

A military coup in Mali; massive protests in Belarus over the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko; more than a million people displaced in Burkina Faso; and the United States takes its next step to extend the Iran arms embargo through the United Nations Security Council, as most of its members still push back. Greetings from This …

Africa, Middle East, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

One Comment

TAKE A LOOK

Where the Hungriest People in the World Live

Barbara Crossette

• October 25, 2017

The 2017 Global Hunger Index produced many sadly predictable findings but also worrying surprises. The report’s subtitle, “The Inequalities of Hunger,” suggests a reason. Naomi Hossain, the guest author of the report, looks at the power structures that can dictate every step of a food chain. “In food systems, power is exercised in a …

Africa, Asia, Poverty, Take a Look

One Comment

A Gift for Balance: ‘Soba’ Ladies Sell Their Goods

Nabila El Hadad

• March 6, 2016

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Everyday, from dawn to dusk, under intense sunshine, thousands of women travel to work through the streets of this capital of nearly three million inhabitants, managing like tightrope walkers the dusty, cratered roads, slaloming between cars and motos, the skin of their feet cracked by the daily march, the lines …

Africa, Women

Leave a Comment

In Burkina Faso, a US Ambassador Wins Over a Slice of Francophone West Africa

Dulcie Leimbach

• January 13, 2016

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Nowhere can the positive presence of the United States in West Africa be more obvious than in the quiet, dusty nation of Burkina Faso, a mostly rural state surrounded by six other countries of ranging stability: Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Togo. Near the heart of a well-coordinated …

Africa, US Foreign Relations

Leave a Comment

A Monastery’s Farm in Burkina Faso Feels the Impacts of Climate Change

Dulcie Leimbach

• December 5, 2015

KOUBRI, Burkina Faso — More than 2,500 miles away from this village, world leaders met recently in Paris to try to save the earth from severe climate change and its deadly effects. Here in West Africa, people in rural communities scrape together livelihoods in a region that is extra-vulnerable to drought and hunger, problems …

Africa, Climate Change, Development, Health and Population

Leave a Comment

WORLDVIEWS

After a Notable UN Career, Sending Young Women to University in Burkina Faso

Frederic Eckhard

• May 10, 2015

SAINT-QUAY-PORTRIEUX, France — My wife, Kathryn, was against it from the beginning. “You’ll have no time for yourself,” she said. In a sense, she was right. Five years after starting a nongovernment organization that supports women’s higher education in Burkina Faso, I spend three to four hours a day on the computer running an …