Burkina Faso's economy: gold for export, grain for the household

How gold came to dominate the exports

Gold mining in Burkina Faso has grown since the mid-1980s, Wikipedia's article on the economy records, and by 2017 it outweighed every other export several times over. In 2017 the leading export category, gems and precious metals, earned US$1.9 billion, 78.5% of all exports; cotton came next at US$198.7 million, 8.3%. Wikipedia's country article puts gold at roughly 70% of export earnings and, for 2023, gives production of 66.9 tonnes worth US$7.18 billion, an estimated 16% of GDP.

The World Bank series shows the turn in the weight of trade. Exports of goods and services were 8.8% of GDP in 2000 and stayed near 10% until 2008; they reached 26.2% in 2011 and 35.0% in 2025. Imports ran between 21.1% and 37.0% of GDP over the same years. Exports totalled US$5.87 billion and imports US$7.31 billion in 2023, according to Wikipedia, and the World Bank estimated that the current account moved into a surplus of 1.1% of GDP in 2025 on the price of gold.

Gold is also dug by hand. The World Bank attributes the rise in gold output in 2025 mainly to the formalisation of artisanal and semi-mechanised mining. Wikipedia's economy article cites a government study of 2023 that found 30.1% of children in the north working permanently in gold mines, and a United States Department of Labor report that lists both gold and cotton among goods produced mostly with child and forced labour.

Why mines closed and the state took others

Insecurity has shut mines. Wikipedia's country article records that it closed 7 of the country's 17 industrial mines after 2023, Inata, Taparko, Karma, Boungou, Youga, Nétiana and Yaramoko, and that industrial output fell by 20% to 53.4 tonnes. The World Bank puts total gold production at 61 tonnes in 2024 and 94 tonnes in 2025, the rise coming from artisanal formalisation and the resumption of industrial production. The state has moved into ownership at the same time. Ecofin Agency reports that a mining code adopted in 2024 raised the state's free minimum stake in mines from 10% to 15% and gave the government an option to buy at least 30% more in gold projects; the law firm Pinsent Masons dates the revision of the code to 2023. A new state company, the Société de Participation Minière du Burkina, known as SOPAMIB, has taken control of the mines the state acquired.

MINING.COM reported in August 2025 that the Boungou and Wahgnion price was a fraction of the US$300 million at which their sale had been valued, and that West African Resources, Kiaka's Australian owner, halted trading in its shares when the request was disclosed. Investment followed the political risk down: Wikipedia records foreign direct investment falling from US$670 million in 2022 to US$83 million in 2024, and the World Bank series shows net inflows of −0.9% of GDP in 2024, the lowest since 2000.

What the farms grow and who works them

Most people, though, live from farming. Wikipedia's country article puts agriculture's share of the working population at about 80%, and Britannica says about nine-tenths of the people live by subsistence farming or herding. In the World Bank series, agriculture, forestry and fishing produced 24.9% of GDP in 2000, peaked at 27.3% in 2008 and fell to 19.9% in 2025. Sorghum, millet, maize, groundnuts and rice are grown to be eaten; cotton, shea nuts, sesame and sugar cane are the crops sold abroad, with fonio, cassava, sweet potatoes and beans also grown. Herds include cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, horses and camels, and Britannica counts livestock among the main sources of revenue. Wikipedia's economy article gives the harvest of 2018:

Cotton matters beyond its export value. Wikipedia's economy article describes the banks as adequately capitalised but overexposed to cotton, whose price swings widely. Rain decides most of the rest. The World Bank credits favourable rainfall and the government's Agropastoral and Fisheries Offensive with a 17.6% rise in cereal production in the 2025 season. It also credits agriculture with 1.7 percentage points of the year's growth.

How the economy has grown through the coups

Measured output has kept rising through the political breaks. The World Bank series gives GDP of US$3.0 billion in 2000, US$10.1 billion in 2010 and US$27.6 billion in 2025, and GDP per person of US$249 in 2000 and US$1,148 in 2025, or US$3,072 at purchasing power. Real growth was lowest at 1.6% in 2022, the year of both coups, and highest at 8.7% in 2005; it was 5.3% in 2025, and the IMF projected 4.9% for 2026. Services carried most of the growth of 2025, 2.1 percentage points of the 5.3%, against 0.9 points from construction and mining, by the World Bank's count, and the World Bank expected 6.1% for 2026. Tax revenue rose from 9.7% of GDP in 2002 to 18.7% in 2024 in the World Bank series.

Prices have swung harder than output. Consumer price inflation reached 14.3% in 2022 and fell to −0.6% in 2025 in the World Bank series; the World Bank's own update for June 2026 gives −0.5% for 2025 and attributes it to plentiful harvests and lower energy prices. IMF figures show general government debt climbing from 20.1% of GDP in 2006 to 59.2% in 2022 and easing to 52.0% in 2025, and the government deficit narrowing from 10.9% of GDP in 2022 to 3.5% in 2025.

The World Bank also estimates that extreme poverty fell by 5 percentage points in 2025. Its Economic Update of June 2026 records women's employment at 63.4% against 76% for men, and it notes that the country hosts a growing number of internally displaced people whose economic reintegration it describes as an issue for social stability.

What the insurgency has cost

UN OCHA measures the insurgency in people rather than in output. It records that more than 2 million people have been forced from their homes over the years of crisis, that 4.5 million needed humanitarian assistance in 2026, and that some roads to the worst affected areas are unsafe, leaving communities dependent on costly air operations and supply convoys. By 31 October 2025, according to the national emergency relief council cited by OCHA, more than 1.1 million displaced people had returned to their places of origin.

Poverty figures do not sit on one line. The World Bank's report of December 2018 gave a poverty rate of 46% in 2009 and 40.1% in 2014. Wikipedia's country article, citing the World Bank, gives extreme poverty of 23.2% in 2024 and more than 5.5 million people living in poverty. The World Bank's country overview of 2026 expects extreme poverty to fall to 34.6% after the harvest of 2025. The three come from different publications and years, and the sources do not set them out on a common method, so they are given here side by side.

Food ties the two together. A report by USAID in October 2018 already described violence disrupting markets, trade and livelihoods in the north and east, and the World Bank credits the recovery of 2024 and 2025 partly to an improved security situation alongside good rains.

What the CFA franc ties the economy to

Burkina Faso has no currency of its own. It uses the West African CFA franc, issued by the Central Bank of West African States in Dakar for the eight members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union and pegged to the euro, Britannica records, with branches of the central bank in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. Monetary policy, reserves and banking supervision are set for the union as a whole. The union is a separate body from ECOWAS, which the country left in January 2025, as the politics article describes.

The franc was devalued in January 1994, and Wikipedia's economy article credits the government's revised programme after the devaluation with a rise in exports and growth, giving 5.9% growth for 1996. The same article describes a financial system dominated by banks, with eleven banks and five non-bank financial institutions, the three largest banks holding nearly 60% of all financial assets.

Why money from abroad matters

Two flows of money come from outside the economy. The first is aid: Wikipedia's country article describes a large part of economic activity as funded by international aid, and UN OCHA's plan for 2026 seeks US$658.5 million for humanitarian assistance, of which 20.02% was funded in OCHA's figures for 2026. The second is work abroad. Britannica records that as many as 1.5 million Burkinabe, almost a third of the labour force, have been abroad at any one time, above all in Ivory Coast and Ghana, and that their remittances help offset the current account deficit. Hundreds of thousands returned after the coup attempt of September 2002 in Ivory Coast, Wikipedia notes, and the regional economy suffered when they could no longer work.

The World Bank series shows the balance of migration turning. Net migration was positive at 3,877 people in 2000 and 17,570 in 2004, negative from 2006, and −27,130 in 2025.

How energy and transport limit industry

Industry, including construction, reached 30.1% of GDP in 2025 in the World Bank series, the highest share since 2000. Manufacturing fell from 15.4% of GDP in 2000 to 6.6% in 2025. Britannica lists its products as foodstuffs, beverages, textiles, shoes and bicycle parts, made in a few plants in the larger towns, and Wikipedia's economy article places industry in Bobo-Dioulasso, Ouagadougou, Banfora and Koudougou. In the capital the processing plants and factories stand in the industrial areas of Kossodo and Gounghin, and some plants have moved there from Bobo-Dioulasso. Research is thin on the ground: Wikipedia's country article gives spending on research and development of 0.20% of GDP in 2009 and 48 full-time researchers per million inhabitants in 2010, nearly half of them in health. In the World Bank series, 28.2% of the population used the internet in 2024.

Power and distance are the constraints most often named. Access to electricity is low, according to Wikipedia's country article, and a 33-megawatt solar plant at Zagtouli near Ouagadougou came online in November 2017. In the World Bank series, renewables supplied 25.2% of electricity in 2000 and 13.9% in 2021. A single railway runs from Kaya through Ouagadougou, Koudougou, Bobo-Dioulasso and Banfora to Abidjan in Ivory Coast; Britannica gives the line from Ouagadougou to Abidjan as about 1,100 kilometres long, of which about 500 run through Burkina Faso. Cargo bound for the country moves through Abidjan, Lomé, Cotonou and Tema, and Britannica records that industry is held back by the small size of the market and the absence of a direct outlet to the sea.