World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Jeremy Ouedraogo and Amidou Compaoré look out across the 20 hectares that have been covered in diguettes, low earth walls that retain water, constructed by a 100 person team that they lead. When the rains come, rice will be planted. In exchange for this work that boosts food security, WFP provides cash to the participants – 1,200 CFA (US$ 2.40) per day.

After a month of work, WFP provides the cash to the participants. Here, they walk towards the distribution site, which is at a high school in their village of Balogo in the Centre West Region of Burkina Faso.

In this particular group, half of the participants were men and half women. They will receive a total of 30,000 CFA (US$ 60) for 25 days of work.

All the names of the participants have been recorded in a ledger by the partner organization that supervised the building of the diguettes. The organization is a local association called APDPK (Association pour la Promotion et le Développement Paysan Kog-liyan).

Security guards are present as US$ 600 is about to be distributed – a large amount in this rural area of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa.

The village chief attended the cash distribution as it is an important event for his constituents.

The cash distribution is carried out by a local microfinance institution called Microfi. Here, one of their staff members calls out the names on the beneficiary cards so that they can go forward to receive their cash.

Participants stand in line, presenting their identification cards before they receive their cash.

As many participants cannot read or write, they register with fingerprints.

A Microfi employee holds cash at the ready to give to the participants. Security sits in the background to ensure the process is calm and safe.

Julienne Ouedraogo holds the cash that she has received. “I will buy maize and sorghum with it,” she said. She is among some 22,000 people that WFP plans to provide with cash in the month of June. A total of US$1.2 million is to be distributed.

WFP field monitor Alamissi Sawadogo speaks to participants about the process to identify areas that could be improved.

The cash comes at an opportune moment – the lean season, the period before the harvest when food stocks are low, has begun. Many of the granaries, like those pictured in this village where some of the participants come from, stand empty.