Burkina Faso: Request for a Four-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Burkina Faso

This paper discusses Burkina Faso’s Request for a Four-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). Burkina Faso faces protracted balance of payments problems, reflecting large development needs and the impact of shocks such as the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, adverse weather conditions, deteriorating domestic security, the food insecurity crisis, and spillovers from Russia’s war in Ukraine. These shocks have disrupted economic activity, affected livelihoods, and exacerbated macroeconomic imbalances. The ECF will help create fiscal space for priority spending, strengthen resilience to shocks while reducing poverty, and bolster fiscal discipline, transparency and governance. It will also help close financing gaps reflecting tight financial conditions, large fiscal deficits, debt vulnerabilities, food insecurity, and fragile security conditions. For the country’s long-term development process, it remains essential to sustain structural reforms to foster economic growth and diversification as well as to reduce poverty. In this context, further efforts to improve the business environment, reinforce governance and anticorruption efforts, and address the security crisis are critical.