Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso: steady but modest growth, 1980–2024

A landlocked Sahelian economy dependent on gold, its leading export since the late 2000s, and cotton, Burkina Faso has seen growth hampered since 2015 by a jihadist insurgency and by two military coups in 2022. Between 1980 and 2024, Burkina Faso's GDP per capita grew from $278 to $982 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 2.9% — steady but modest growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 4.9% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 3.0 points, reflecting relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 28.4% to 20.9% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 48.5% to 43.9% of GDP, a comparatively unusual pattern for this period. On human development, life expectancy rose from 46.5 to 61.3 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 0.2% to 10.0%, while the urban population share grew from 8.4% to 28.3%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 0.05 to 0.27 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) narrowed from 48.0 to 37.4; the poverty headcount ratio fell from 87.6% to 42.1%.