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Country Assessment: Africa

Upgrading of Low Income Settlements 

Burkina Faso has been implementing different urban upgrading projects and policies since the 1970s in order to find appropriate responses to rapid urban development in unplanned and unserviced areas. The Cissin Project, started in 1974, was the first upgrading project implemented in Burkina Faso. Cissin was also one of the first urban upgrading pilot projects in all of the West Africa Region, having started prior to the Dalifort project in Senegal and the Nylon project in Cameroon. This project, executed by the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (Habitat) UNDP-UNCHS, was considered a success by the Government, and new projects executed by other agencies integrated the methodology and the lessons learned there. 

Between 1983 and 1990, the Government implemented a national urban upgrading program during which more than 125,000 plots were regularized. The national housing policy supported the distribution of a large number of plots in order to provide a

substantial response to increasing housing demands. However, upgrading initiatives through the development of these "lotissements,"1 were generally not accompanied by investment in adequate infrastructure. 

The current urban development context is strongly marked by these previous policies. New project objectives are to improve urban living conditions by executing priority urban work on infrastructure and services, with the active participation of the urban population and in partnership with local authorities.

Full Report: Upgrading of Low Income Settlements Country Assessment Report: Burkina Faso  

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