No dignity in the dark: perceptions of aid in Burkina Faso

Political instability, proliferation of armed violence, and climate change are fuelling humanitarian crises in Burkina Faso where one of the key commitments of the Grand Bargain – that crisis-affected communities should have more say in the kind of aid they get and how they get it – is proving elusive. People in the West African nation feel uninformed about available humanitarian assistance and the targeting process, resulting in compounding, adverse effects. Tensions between aid recipients and those left out are rising, most think aid does not meet their basic needs, and people feel insecure because they don’t know if they can access aid.

Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) has been evaluating whether people feel their views influence humanitarian decision-making in Burkina Faso for the past two years. Building on baseline data collected in 2020, we surveyed internally displaced people (IDPs) and non-displaced people across the six main regions for the humanitarian response (Boucle du Mouhoun, Centre-Est, Centre-Nord, Est, Nord, and Sahel) in August 2021.

The results were presented and discussed in a community setting and during one-on-one qualitative interviews in Kaya and Ouahigouya in January 2022. This report combines our quantitative survey data with the qualitative feedback and recommendations from community discussions and one-on-one qualitative interviews to explore how IDPs and non-displaced people feel about the humanitarian assistance they have received. GTS also solicited feedback from humanitarian staff via an online survey in June and July of 2021. Their opinions are reflected in the right-hand column of this report.