Climate Resilience Takes Root in Burkina Faso: A Community-Driven Approach to Food Security

2024 LOCAL ADAPTATION CHAMPIONS AWARD WINNER

As the climate crisis intensifies, rural communities in Burkina Faso are grappling with severe challenges—escalating food insecurity, ecosystem degradation, and poverty. Yet, hope is sprouting through a community-centered initiative spearheaded by Tree Aid. Since 2017, the project has transformed the lives of tens of thousands, mostly women, by providing tools and training to restore degraded ecosystems, develop sustainable food sources, and adapt to climate change. The initiative promotes the restoration, production, and consumption of non-timber forest products such as moringa, baobab, and shea, which offer reliable food and income for local communities.

Restoring Land, Restoring Lives

At the heart of this initiative is a community-driven approach to restoring forests and improving agricultural practices. The first phase of the project ran from 2017 to 2022, where up to 100,000 people were involved in the promotion of non-timber forest products. This was achieved by establishing 179 community-led village tree enterprises: small businesses centred around the production and commercialization of non-timber forest products, providing economic empowerment—especially for women.

Jasmin Dorney, Advocacy Officer for Tree Aid, explained, “The impact of this project is undeniable. Women who were once marginalized are now leading local businesses, increasing household incomes, and contributing to food security. By planting resilient trees, we are not just feeding people—we are empowering them to thrive in a changing climate.”

Alongside village tree enterprises, nutrition gardens—communal plots where villagers grow trees like moringa—offer a stable source of nutritious food for consumption and sale. These gardens are particularly crucial in regions like North-Central Burkina Faso, where erratic weather patterns are becoming the norm.

The second phase of the project has been up and running since 2021: it continues to support women and young people with an additional focus on internally displaced people. The aim is to reach 400,000 people, supporting 600 individual and collective enterprises with 28,000 members, creating around 2,000 jobs. During this phase, 200 nutrition gardens will be grown for vulnerable households, 780,000 trees will be planted, and 28 market kiosks will be built to sell tree products.

Empowering Women: From Margins to Leadership

One of the project’s key features is its commitment to gender equality. Women in Burkina Faso, especially in rural areas, face barriers to economic independence, from unequal access to resources to systemic discrimination. Tree Aid’s project actively tackles these inequalities by placing women at the forefront of change. Seventy-three percent of village tree enterprises participants are women, and their newfound economic power is reshaping household dynamics.

“Women now have more control over land, trees, and resources than ever before,” Dorney added. “This has empowered them to provide for their families and take on leadership roles. We’ve seen an 18% increase in women reporting that they have as much control over trees and their products as their male counterparts.”

A Model for Locally Led Adaptation

The project works with both national and local governments, alongside communities, to implement decentralized forest governance structures. This means that control and decision-making power around access and management of forest resources is devolved to the local level. For example, community land rights and charters were negotiated and established for the nutrition gardens.

The project is building a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty through community training and awareness. Adaptation decisions are informed through a combination of local, traditional, Indigenous, general and scientific knowledge. The project integrates 'climate-smart' agricultural techniques, designed with communities, to enhance resilience and adapt to climate change. For instance, planting trees which are both hardy and nutritious means that communities can harvest stable supplies of food all year round, even when other crops fail in difficult conditions.

The project benefits from a robust monitoring and learning system, which allowed for adaptive management and programming led by community feedback. Methods used include the Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey, focus group discussions with communities, baseline and endline assessments of local enterprise groups, ecological monitoring plots, and independent nutritional impact surveys.

Tree Aid’s project exemplifies how locally led adaptation can drive social, economic, and environmental change. By empowering local communities to manage their resources, the initiative demonstrates that climate resilience starts from the ground up.