Nation number 176 out of 177, according to the Human Development Index of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).

School attendance, literacy rates, access to power and electricity, communications, roads, health, water, life expectancy, infant mortality, food - there is a long list of criteria which rank us among the last, the poorest, those who make up the tail end.

Reading such a score one could feel bitterness,  or even  shame.

One could of course challenge numbers, close one's eyes, stick one's head into the sand, refuse to look around, refuse to see. One could say "No, that is not true, there is a good life in Burkina Faso."

Maybe, but for whom?

For our comfort, we could point out that we nevertheless advance, not as fast as others and therefore, in the statistics, it seems that we are going backwards. We have in fact gone from O.317 points in 2003 to 0.370 in 2007.

We live in a world where everything is moving fast. Therefore those who march ahead at a slow pace, or stand still, are downgraded on the list.

One could also decide to face the sad and stark facts, which the majority endure in their everyday lives:

• Cotton farmers have seen their profits shattered in the past 3 years.(The selling price of cotton has fallen, whilst the price of inputs of fertiliser and pesticides has gone up). The salaries of the agents of SOFITEX  Cotton Company, however, have not fallen - where lies the error?)
• For those who learnt to read and write three years ago - how much remains of their skills, given that no reading material has been provided for them?
• Five provinces, or 5 million inhabitants, will suffer famine or malnutrition this year.
• How many do not yet have access to drinking water in this country?
• The efforts to bring more children into the educational system are blocked by a lack of funds.
• Morale and motivation among civil servants are falling, due to bad governance.
• The fight against corruption only reaches minor offenders.
• At a meeting held recently I learnt that half of Burkina's villages are not covered (not even in the long term) by a plan to extend power lines and  give access to electricity.
• Promised roads have not been built.
• Along the Ouagadougou-Bobo Dioulasso highway (connecting the capital with the second largest city) mobile phone antennae are tripled, while many villages do not yet have one telephone.
• And what about access to health care? Drugs are too expensive, too many health care workers are losing heart and peripheral areas have been sacrificed for better service in the capital.
• Infant and maternal mortality rates  remain high.
• A minority is accumulating wealth and would have a hard time justifying their fortune at a "normal" tax revenue office (if ever there is anything one could call normal in this regard in Burkina ...)
• Women cannot find their place in society of today: too often they are barred from education, mutilated, given away in marriage, excluded from ownership of land (which they themselves cultivate), harassed during as students or when unmarried ... in spite of the fact that it is the women who are the pillars of the nation's economy.
• Wage earners and domestic servants continue to work for a pittance, farm labourers get 300 CFA francs a day, not to speak of housemaids, who make the life of the city middle class so pleasant. A good life for the privileged few, but at what cost for lesser mortals! 
• Unemployment rates in the city - and in rural Burkina - are very high, the young are under-employed (Look at those able-bodied youths roaming the streets selling phone cards!)

The list of all the numerous human development indicators does not end here. Nevertheless the President of Burkina Faso is proud of the nation's growth rate, allegedly excellent. We are among the top 40! 

But per capita Gross Domestic Product does not disclose the iniquities of the distribution of wealth, it does not show the endemic poverty and it does not reveal the fact that "development" only benefits a few.

We lack a proper agricultural policy, which would enable a real take off of the economy. We lack an appropriate management of ressources, which would make it possible to bring back capital, that has been unduly invested abroad. We lack a governance which would allow all an opportunity, regardless of party membership. We lack a political elite, impassioned by the aim of development for their country. We lack a judiciary which does not uphold impunity. We lack leaders capable of mobilising vital energies ... 

To quote the somewhat outrageous words of Maître Farama recently: "This country stinks of misery from every pore". It is only the privileged in the cities, or, sorry, in the capital, who do not have a fine enough nose to smell it ...

Incidentally, is it fair to assume that the people of the UNDP forgot to take Ouaga 2000 (the capital's elite class posh residential area) into account in their ranking? 

Father Jacques Lacour, BP 332 Koudougou)

SEDELAN

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Published in the Droit dans les yeux ( "Eye to eye") column of daily paper LE PAYS, January 8th 2008