Population is getting poorer, government statistics show

The 11 million population of Burkina Faso has grown poorer over the past five years, according to a new survey of living standards conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Demography (INSD). The survey, conducted between April and July, shows that 46.5 percent of the population of this drought-prone West African country live below the poverty line on less than 82,670 CFA (US $138) per person per year. That represents an increase from 45.3 percent in 1998 and 44.5 percent in 1994. Bondoudaba Dabire, a senior official of the government's Bureau for the Coordination of Economic and Social Development Programmes, said the government would have to rethink its poverty reduction strategy. He warned that its target of reducing poverty in Burkina Faso by a third by 2015 might not be met. Government attempts to improve living standards have been hampered by an influx of up to half a million returning migrants from neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire over the past year. Many have fled back to Burkina Faso with little or no money to escape the persecution of foreigners unleashed by Cote d'Ivoire's civil war. So far 350,000 returning migrants have been registered by the government, but officials estimate privately that the real number of returnees is nearer 500,000. Dabire said the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire was also likely to slash the value of emigrants' remittances from that country to about $38 million this year from over $100 million last year - putting further pressure on the families at home who depend on money sent home by relatives to get by.. The INSD survey showed that almost half of those living below the poverty line in Burkina Faso subsist on less than 50 US cents per day. Most of these people still live in the countryside, but the survey shows a sharp increase in extreme urban poverty as a result of destitute people in the villages migrating to the towns. The proportion of people living accute poverty in urban areas has nearly doubled to 19.9 percent from 10.4 percent in 1994. Daniel Bambara, the director general of economic planning at the Ministry of Economic Development, said the poorest of the poor were moving into the cities at a faster rate, but the government had not taken adequate measures to meet their needs. Although government figures published last week showed that proportion of children attending primary school rose to 47.7 percent in the 2002/2003 academic year from 38.6 percent two years earlier, the INSD survey noted with concern that only 21.8 percent of Burkinabes over the age of 15 could read and write.