Imagine waiting in line at a government building, hours from where you live. Now, imagine waiting in this line with a newborn baby at home.
You are waiting to pick up a birth certificate for your baby, which was not made available to you at the hospital when your baby was born. When you finally get to the front of the line, you are told that the birth certificate isn’t ready yet. You are told to come back tomorrow.
You explain that you live far away, that you have to work, that you can’t come back tomorrow. It may even be dangerous for you to travel, as violent extremist groups continue to gain territory and launch violent attacks on civilians like you. The government official shrugs and tells you there’s nothing they can do.
What are the consequences of this gap in local governance?
When new parents welcome a child, the last thing on their mind is navigating bureaucratic delays and red tape, much less the dangers of travel. But this was the reality for many new parents and families in Burkina Faso.
Without a birth certificate, or any other form of identification, families in Burkina Faso cannot apply for government services or benefits for their children. This means that bureaucratic delays are not just inconvenient — they are harmful.
What can community members do to address this challenge?
USAID’s Burkina Faso Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project (IGR) supported citizens and civil society workers to collaborate with local government officials on Roadmaps to Resilience, commune-wide planning documents with guidelines and actionable steps towards resolving their communities’ challenges.
They developed Roadmaps to Resilience through a co-creation process with diverse community actors, laying the groundwork for inclusive strategic planning and fostering partnerships with different actors in the local governance system to address community priorities. During workshops to draft Roadmaps to Resilience, participants in communes like Péni, Ouahigouya and others throughout the country identified bureaucratic delays related to receiving national ID cards and birth certificates as a key issue in their commune or municipality.
Why ID cards?
Like birth certificates, national ID cards are critical resources for people in Burkina Faso to apply for government services, benefits and jobs. For the over two million internally displaced Burkinabe citizens, or IDPs, who fled their hometowns to escape violent extremism, the issue is compounded. IDPs are often forced to leave their homes at a moment’s notice, and many are not able to take their national ID cards or other official documents with them.
Without these documents, they cannot access food assistance or other critical support in their host communities. ID cards are also essential documents for elections and political processes, allowing citizens to participate in the democratic process. This is critical, as Burkina Faso’s transitional government has pledged to hold elections at the end of the country’s transition period.
What else do Roadmaps to Resilience address?
Roadmaps to Resilience highlight challenges and provide solutions around issues of access to government documents, as well as the representation of women and minorities in government decision-making, communication gaps between government and citizens, and other areas of local governance that, when resolved, will strengthen democratic processes at the local level and ultimately improve social cohesion and community resilience against violent extremism.
The Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project is also working to strengthen the capacities of town halls and special delegations — local government bodies made up of official and civil society representatives — on participatory strategic planning, developing feedback and complaint mechanisms, transparency, service delivery, and gender-responsive budgeting. This way, local governments have the training and capacity they need to implement their commune Roadmaps to Resilience in a way that is sustainable and responsive.
Local government, civil society and other community partners understand that achieving the goals set out in the Roadmaps to Resilience will take time and that it is ultimately their responsibility to implement them.
But the Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project can help.
To provide immediate support, the Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project worked with local governments to issue more than 57,000 ID cards to Burkinabe citizens, many of whom are IDPs. The Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project issued a grant to the General Directorate for the Modernization of Civil Status (DGMEC) to support their ongoing work to digitize civil records in communes across the country to equip communes to provide these critical administrative services efficiently. Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project’s grant allowed the project to buy scanners, computers and external hard drives and provided training for the General Directorate for the Modernization of Civil Status staff on using the equipment. The staff will then train commune government workers.
DGMEC aims to digitize all commune-level records by March 2025 so that citizens — including new babies — can access ID cards and birth certificates without delay. Other communes, including Ouahigouya, are launching efforts to establish civil registry centers in rural areas so that new parents can access birth certificates closer to their homes and will no longer need to travel long distances.
In addition to ID cards, civil society members identified the need to create spaces for women, youth and people with disabilities to speak with their local government representatives and ensure their voices are heard.
The Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project supported civil society organizations to set up coalitions to train these populations in advocacy techniques and civic engagement. Today, members of these coalitions in communes like Yako meet local authorities quarterly to discuss their views on important issues. The coalitions are still new, but members are confident that they will have a strong impact on commune policies and decision making.
Roadmaps to Resilience as blueprints for strong communities and responsive local governance
With Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project’s support, community members throughout Burkina Faso established effective partnerships to work with their local government officials to resolve the challenges in their community that matter most to them. Roadmaps to Resilience support productive partnerships between local governments, civil society organizations and communities, including marginalized groups, to strengthen citizen-focused, responsive local governance.
These foundational relationships, cultivated with support from the Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project, help to promote community resilience to political and societal shocks, strengthening the foundation for a democratic society in Burkina Faso during this critical period of political transition.
Additional contribution to this blog came from Ali Dabre in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Pam Rosen is a Program Associate with the Governance practice area at Creative, supporting the Inclusive Governance for Resilience project from Washington, D.C. She has previously worked on projects supporting peacebuilding, conflict management, and early warning/early response mechanisms in West Africa. Pam received her MA in Conflict Resolution and International Security from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and holds a BA in International Studies and Political Science from Macalester College.
