Burkina Faso to set up multi-million infrastructural project to combat militancy
The Burkina Faso government has announced an infrastructural development plan that aims to create massive jobs and boost economic growth in the country’s impoverished northern region, where the jobless youth have become prime targets for recruitment by Islamist militants.
The project will cost an estimated $819 million, and will prioritize the building of schools, roads, medical facilities and water systems.
Bloomberg reports Burkinabe Prime Minister to have said that funds will also be disbursed to small and medium sized businesses to boost employment, in order to curb the radicalization of the young jobless people.
Burkina Faso is battling an insurgency in its northern Sahel region, where most of the 33 militant attacks since 2015 have taken place. Those attacks killed at least 50 people.
The attacks in the country are said to have dented its reputation for religious tolerance, and mirrors a wider trend in West Africa where strikes in Ivory Coast, Mali, Chad and Niger have killed hundreds of people in the past few years.
Militancy is “rooted in extreme poverty and despair,” Thieba said. “We know that it’s not yet too late to recover.”
