Burkina Faso:

• Recently, Burkina Faso’s army announced that it had ousted President RochKabore, suspended the constitution, dissolved the government and the national assembly, and closed the country’s borders.
• A former French colony, Burkina Faso has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence in 1960, including several coups.
• The country’s name, meaning “land of the honest men”, was picked by revolutionary military officer Thomas Sankara who took power in 1983. He was toppled and killed in 1987.
• Since 2015, the country has been fighting an Islamist insurgency that spilled over from neighboring Mali. This has fueled anger in the military and damaged the once important tourist industry.
• Landlocked Burkina Faso, one of West Africa’s poorest countries despite being a gold producer, has experienced numerous coups since independence from France in 1960.
• Islamist militants control swathes of Burkina Faso’s territory and have forced residents in some areas to abide by their harsh version of Islamic law, while the military’s struggle to quell the insurgency has drained scarce national resources.
• Kabore had faced waves of protests in recent months amid frustration over killings of civilians and soldiers by militants, some of whom have links to Islamic State and al Qaeda.
• Burkina Faso along with three other African countries — Benin, Chad and Mali are known as the Cotton Four or C4.
• Cotton is discussed at the WTO on two tracks:

1. the trade reforms needed to address subsidies and high trade barriers for cotton, and
2. the assistance provided to the cotton sector in developing countries

• The trade aspects of cotton are handled by the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session including through dedicated discussions on trade in cotton. The development assistance aspects of cotton are discussed in the meetings of the “Director-General’s Consultative Framework Mechanism on Cotton”.
• These various tracks of discussion have been developed over the years as a response to a series of proposals to address the sector tabled by four African countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali — known as the Cotton Four or C4.

Source: EPIC March 2022