In his first book, Mark Weston has given himself the challenge of observing the daily life of people in three of the world’s poorest countries: Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. I was fascinated by the journey that Weston and

Read the rest of The Ringtone and the Drum: travels in the world’s poorest countries – By Francesca Washtell »

By African standards, Burkina Faso is not a particularly spectacular country. It is small, has a tiny population and internal politics which most foreign correspondents tend to find somewhat pedestrian. No wonder that it receives only little attention, even in

Read the rest of Burkina Faso: Blaise Compaoré and the politics of personal enrichment – By Peter Dörrie »

One of the remarkable facts of history that re-emerged during the trial of Charles Taylor was the key role that Burkinabé President Blaise Compaoré played in the bloody wars of Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s. When Taylor first

Read the rest of Burkina Faso: Compaoré’s Continuing Will to Power – By Michael Keating and Coulibaly Nadoun »

Last week the United Nations announced that famine conditions in Somalia had eased, thanks to a good harvest and strong response from the humanitarian community. It warned, however, that failure to continue to respond could have dire consequences and urged

Read the rest of A Tale of Two Food Crises: How to Respond, not Whether to Respond – By Laura Hammond »