Burundi

Development cooperation

In February 2012, Burundi was included on the list of priority poor countries of French cooperation. However, the French Development Agency (AFD) had to suspend its operations for two years during the 2015 crisis. The year 2017 saw its activities resume, particularly via the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE’s) partner agency mission which was entrusted to the AFD to prepare its next round of financing.

From this partnership came a project to support the education sector, prepared by the AFD in 2018 and signed in June 2019, in the amount of US$30 million ($25.6 million from the GPE and a €4 million grant from the AFD), focusing on increasing access to and the quality of education, particularly in the early years of primary school. Active NGOs in the area of inclusive education (gender, handicap, poverty) will have specific programmes to strengthen the resilience of students and schools.

In addition, the NGOs section of the AFD continues to support several regional projects by NGOs operating in Burundi (Play International, Sidaction, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (FIACAT), Reporters Without Borders (RWB)).