Overview

An ambitious programme to build a World Fit for Children

The cooperation programme comprises seven complemenary and interdependent components which are :
- Health/Nutrition,
- HIV and STD’s control,
- Basic Education reinforcement,
- Water Environment and Sanitation,
- Legal and Socio economic Protection for Children and Women,
- Communication for Development,
- Social Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.

The goal of the programme is to contribute to alleviating poverty and attaining women and children’s rights. The cooperation programme aims to contribute to achieving the goals of the Strategic Framwork for the Fight against Poverty that constitutes support system bringing together all stakeholders with a view to promoting the development of the country.
The framework incorporates the goals of the national plans and programmes.  UNDAF takes into account the four lines of the Strategic Framework for Poverty Alleviation, hence it has focused on seven outcomes, and the programme will contribute to achieving them. The new programme considers the five priority areas of the UNICEF 2006-2009 Medium Term Strategic Plan. This later is based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. This is a result-driven programme, with regard to the plan stemming from the UN General Assembly special session held in May 2002 and dedicated to children to build a world fit for them.

The new programme also contributes to fulfilling Burkina Faso’s commitments with regard to the September 2000 Millennium Declaration and to the Millenium Development Goals. It supports the initiatives to accelerate the attainment of national goals.    

The programme is implemented on the basis of a result-oriented approach and will help achieve, among other, the following results by 2010:

-         Reduced infant and children mortality rates by 20%

-         Reduced Maternal mortality rate  by 20%

-         Reduced The morbidity rate of waterborne and environment-related  diseases

-         Reversed HIV/AIDS trends

-         Increased net education rate for boys, and by 65% for girls while bringing the rate of childhood guidance up to 4,6% and that of the  literacy rate by 40%

The partnership will be developed with other agencies, the civil society and private sector (Complementarity and synergies of interventions), the joint programmes within the framework of the UNDAF, the Government’s National Development Health programme with its sectoral approaches, the ten-year Basic Education Development Plan.  The same applies to alliances with political, customary, administrative and religious authorities and media that are called to be reinforced.

The intersectoriality will be enhanced to better impact on the society, making use of the complementarity and synergies in interventions.

The advocacy will be developed to promote children and the women’s rights on the basis of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as the taking into consideration of national efforts to alleviate poverty.

The behaviour change communication will be developed within the framework of an integrated communication plan as a key strategy for all the components of the programme in order to attain sustainable results on the improvement of children and women’s situation.

The involvement of decentralized structures in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the cooperation programme will be enhanced. A sub regional approach will be developed in such a way as to take into account the cross-border aspect of some issues such as the excision, child trafficking and polio, as well as guinea worm eradication.

Successful experiences should be extended with a view to helping Burkina Faso scale up to attain national goals.