Decentralization in Burkina Faso: A Policy Reform Process in Slow Motion

The current process of decentralization in French-speaking West Africa is linked to the political changes that occurred in these countries in the early 1990s. Domestically, under pressure from people, the civil society and political parties seeking "freedom" and "democratic opening", as well as externally from donors who made their aid conditional on the introduction of democracy as the model of political governance, several leaders of sub-Saharan Africa began to adopt Western democracy. As early as in 1991, Burkina Faso engaged its "democratic renewal" with the adoption of a new Constitution by referendum in June 1991, which laid the foundations of decentralization through the organization of the country into local government (collectivités territoriales) and the establishment of local governance through the “democratic participation of people in the free administration of local governments”.