Context

Burkina Faso has witnessed a deteriorating humanitarian and protection crisis since 2015, following various governmental changes. More than 2 million people are internally displaced in the country. Since July 2022, violence and displacement has spread to the region of Boucle du Mouhoun, with increasing incidence of armed group attacks in the area. Humanitarian access to Boucle de Mouhoun continues to be difficult due to roadblocks and isolation of many of the towns and localities. The security crisis has led to school closures and worsened access to water. 

Climate change and extreme weather has further aggravated the humanitarian needs in the country and in Boucle du Mouhoun, specifically. Although Burkina Faso contributes to just 0.08 per cent of global emissions, it is ranked 99.33 in the Global Climate Risk Index. These climatic changes impact agriculture yield, worsen the food and water crisis, and force further movement of the population. With 80% of the population living on agriculture and livestock in the country, climate change has a direct impact on people’s income and food security. 
These growing humanitarian needs fuel tensions, especially between host and internal refugee communities, as they compete for scarce resources.  

CARE’s TALISOC program applies a Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) approach to this imminent crisis, to ensure the survival of the most vulnerable community members through humanitarian aid, while also strengthening local structures and capacities on a long-term basis through development programming, and supporting traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. The most vulnerable community members receive unconditional cash assistance and vouchers for drinking water, while CARE also trains community members in climate-adapted agriculture, conducts business and marketing trainings, builds the spaces and competencies for non-violent conflict resolution, and ensures gender inclusivity in all decision-making process. CARE also emphasizes green solutions (such as using techniques to transform bioorganic materials, solar energy for agriculture, waste recycling, above-ground market gardening, etc.), to help the local community improve their living conditions on a long-term basis. Moreover, as women are the most affected and included the least in decision-making spaces, CARE employs the Women Lead in Emergencies approach, whereby local women’s groups are supported by the project to name their own needs and wishes, and to implement changes accordingly. 

Main Activities 

• Distribute unconditional cash assistance and non-food items (NFIs) (namely, WASH Working Group-compliant hygiene kits and dignity kits) to vulnerable households (with priority for IDPs, female headed households, and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors). 
• Rehabilitate/create water points. 
• Provide training on sales and marketing and provide agricultural inputs (including vouchers for tools and materials). 
• Establish Farmers’ Field and Business Schools (FFBS) in the communities which support farmers and micro-enterprises working in the four key value chains with trainings on climate-resilient agricultural techniques and in a conflict sensitive manner. 
• Support pilot projects in climate-resilient crops and techniques.  
• Support local leaders in creating spaces for dialogues between host communities and those of Internally Displaced People (IDP), on natural resource management and other drivers of potential conflict and on re-activating traditional conflict resolution methodologies. 
• Support the development of 20 participatory and inclusive decision-making platforms for all local development initiatives. 
• Form and support the creation of VSLAs for women and youth specifically, in a conflict-sensitive manner. 
• Sensitize VSLA leaders on inclusive local governance and development in the target communities of the project. 
• Form and capacitate local groups of women as active humanitarian actors using CARE’s Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE) methodology. 
• Raise awareness on women’s rights for the entire community, including men and boys, on protection and GBV, led by the WLiE methodology. 

Expected Results: 

• Local micro-entrepreneurs (mostly women and youth) access support, including materials, skills, and resources, to launch and/or maintain their micro-enterprises. 
• Local micro-entrepreneurs (mostly women and youth) have increased skills in climate-resilient agro-pastoral production value-added transformation, and sales in both farm and off-farm micro-enterprises.  
• A group of trained women and youth demonstrate leadership skills to mobilize communities in identifying needs and raising those needs to local leaders for the ownership of local preventive, recovery, development and social cohesion actions. 
• Members of existing community mediation/ social dialogue mechanisms are strengthened for the prevention and management of conflicts and actively participate in raising their voices for peaceful co-existence of different groups.  
• Affected persons have increased access to efficient, household size-appropriate humanitarian aid for up to three months. 

Participants 

8,550 direct households representing 59,850 indirect beneficiaries: 

• Approximately 77% will be host community members and 23% IDPs. 
• Approximately 52% will be women and 48% will be men.
• Approximately 30% will be youth aged 18 to 29 years old and 70% will be adults. 
• Approximately 1.2% will be persons with disabilities.