Transparency in the mining sector: Burkina Faso scored 75.5 out of 100 points following an evaluation

Transparency in the mining sector: Burkina Faso has obtained a moderate overall score in the implementation of the 2019 EITI Standard

Decision of the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors notes that this Validation was carried out in exceptional circumstances, Burkina Faso having experienced two successive coups d’état in 2022.

Despite the challenges, this Validation concludes that Burkina Faso has achieved a moderate overall score (75.5 points) in implementing the 2019 EITI Standard, given the achievements prior to the successive coups and the efforts made by stakeholders to continue EITI implementation under these exceptional circumstances. Following the two coups in 2022, Burkina Faso’s Constitution was suspended and the country remains under military rule and suspension by regional bodies, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The security situation remains very difficult. The Board recognises that, despite this problematic context, implementation of the EITI has continued, notably with the publication of reports. It congratulates the Burkina Faso EITI Multi-stakeholder Group (GMP) for these efforts. However, the Board also expresses serious concerns about the impact of events since 2022 on the progress made in strengthening transparency and accountability in extractive sector governance. The overall score is an average of the scores for the three components “Stakeholder Engagement”, “Transparency”, and “Results and Impact”.

In the “Results and Impact” component, Burkina Faso achieved a high score (85 points), reflecting the country’s continued efforts in disseminating information and open data. The Board commends GMP for its continued efforts in disseminating the key findings of the EITI Reports in a volatile security environment, continuing its use of radio broadcasts in local languages to raise awareness in more remote mining regions and its participation in the media. The Board also commends EITI Burkina Faso for the publication of extractive industries datasets through its open data portal, and encourages the country to continue to update this data on a regular basis. The Board considers that an institutionalised process would be useful to follow up on recommendations relating to the governance of the extractive sector as a whole, in order to ensure multi-stakeholder oversight leading to broader reform and policy recommendations. Burkina Faso was awarded an additional point for the effectiveness and sustainability of its implementation.

Burkina Faso received a relatively low score (67.5 points) for the “Stakeholder Engagement” component. The Board recognises the commitment of stakeholders from government, companies and civil society, who have ensured sustainable implementation of the EITI in a difficult context. Although several industrial mines have been forced to close due to the heightened security crisis, the Board emphasises that company commitment remains strong and that there are no significant obstacles to company participation in the EITI process. The Board also recognises the dissemination and advocacy activities carried out by civil society, as well as its ongoing commitment to monitoring the implementation of the Mining Code. The Board takes note of the protocol on freedom of expression and of the press adopted by the GMP. However, the Board stresses that the recent requisition of gold purchased from companies, as well as plans to earmark half of the funds of the Local Development Mining Fund (LDMF) to finance national security expenditure, represent important government decisions in the mining sector linked to the ongoing fight against Islamist insurgents. The Board believes that recent government actions since the second coup d’état in 2022, and under exceptional circumstances, have made it difficult to maintain traceability of extractive revenue flows and undermined the achievements of the Burkina Faso EITI in securing funds for local communities in a transparent, stable and predictable investment climate for mining companies. The Board considers that, despite the dynamism of the media environment and the commitment of stakeholders to the EITI process, there is a notable lack of diversity of opinion in the coverage of government actions in the mining sector, such as the requisitioning of gold, the recent granting of licences or the allocation of half of the Local Development Mining Fund for security purposes. In a context of shrinking civic space in general and disproportionate government actions against certain media, the Board considers that the environment is not fully conducive to civil society engagement, freedom of expression and critical public debate on extractive industries governance, due to fears of state reprisals for public expression of views critical of the authorities. There is also a need for industry and civil society colleges to publicly codify their GMP appointment procedures to ensure transparent, open and fair practice.

Burkina Faso obtained a moderate score (74 points) for the “Transparency” component. The Board congratulates Burkina Faso on establishing the EITI as a reliable and authoritative source of information on the sector. Since the previous Validation, the country has published a series of contracts and introduced a new licence register. New legislation on the collection and publication of beneficial ownership information has been introduced and provides the basis for more comprehensive public disclosures in the future. Data on production, exports and relevant revenues are broken down by project and made publicly available. The Board considers that there is an urgent need to publish updated estimates of artisanal mining activities and to finalise the ongoing study on artisanal mining and illicit financial flows, given the estimated importance of these activities and their potential links to the financing of terrorist groups and smuggling. The Burkina Faso EITI has maintained rigorous disclosures on sub-national transfers, with a view to increasing accountability in the use of local development mining funds that the EITI has helped to establish, although recent government measures to earmark a proportion of these funds for national security spending are a cause for concern.

The Board determined that Burkina Faso will have until the next Validation, which will begin on 1 January 2026, to take corrective actions regarding government engagement (Requirement 1.1), civil society engagement (Requirement 1.3), multi-stakeholder group governance (Requirement 1.4), contracting and licensing (Requirement 2.2), contracts (Requirement 2.4), beneficial ownership (Requirement 2.5), state participation (Requirement 2.6), production data (Requirement 3.2), export data (Requirement 3.3), barter arrangements and infrastructure provision (Requirement 4.3), level of disaggregation (Requirement 4.7), distribution of extractive industry revenues (Requirement 5.1), social and environmental expenditure (Requirement 6.1) and EITI recommendations (Requirement 7.3). In accordance with Article 6 of the EITI Standard, if it is deemed at the next Validation that the country has not made progress in the areas of stakeholder engagement, transparency and results and impact, it will be subject to temporary suspension. In accordance with the EITI Standard, Burkina Faso may request an extension of this deadline or request that Validation begin earlier than planned.

Corrective measures and strategic recommendations

1. The EITI Board has agreed that Burkina Faso should take the following corrective actions. Progress on these corrective actions will be assessed during the next Validation, which begins on 1 January 2026:
2. In line with Requirement 1.1, the government of Burkina Faso should publicly renew its commitment to the EITI Principles and objectives through the media, and operationalise this commitment through effective participation in multi-stakeholder discussions on all aspects of extractive industries governance, particularly issues related to public debate on the mining sector. To strengthen implementation, the government could take concrete steps towards the systematic publication of more extractive data on the websites of relevant state entities, in order to demonstrate an operational commitment to the EITI process.
3. In line with Requirement 1.3, Burkina Faso must ensure that there are no government-imposed constraints on civil society’s freedom of expression regarding all aspects of the EITI process and public debate on extractive industry governance, particularly in all resource-rich regions of the country. The government should take measures to protect civil society actors from harassment, intimidation or persecution if they express their views on the governance of the oil, gas or mining sector. If civil society actors participating in the EITI are threatened or harassed for expressing their views on the extractive sector or for engaging in other EITI-related activities, the government is obliged to take measures to protect these actors and their freedom of expression. The government and the Multi-Stakeholder Group should find pragmatic solutions to any practical constraints on civil society’s ability to express itself freely on all issues covered by the EITI process, including in regions where extractive activities are taking place. The Multi-stakeholder Group is invited to regularly monitor the evolution of civil society’s capacity to participate in the EITI. In accordance with the EITI Protocol: Civil Society Participation, civil society representatives on the Multi-Stakeholder Group are encouraged to bring to the attention of the Multi-Stakeholder Group any ad hoc restrictions that may contravene the Protocol. In collaboration with the Multi-stakeholder Group, the government should document the steps it is taking to remove any barriers to civil society participation in the EITI. The Civil Society College is encouraged to strengthen its engagement with organisations and groups in the mining regions to ensure that the views of artisanal and small-scale miners in the different mining regions are reflected in the implementation of the EITI.
4. In line with Requirement 1.4, Burkina Faso should ensure that the statutory procedures for appointing and changing representatives on the EITI Multi-stakeholder Group are public and implemented in a manner that is fair, open and transparent in practice. The company and government constituencies are encouraged to improve the gender balance of their representation on the Multi-stakeholder Group. The Multi-stakeholder Group is invited to review the profiles of its representatives on the Multi-stakeholder Group with a view to enhancing its anti-corruption efforts and integrating the perspective of semi-mechanised and artisanal miners into EITI implementation objectives and activities. EITI-BF is encouraged to improve the accessibility of the minutes of the Multi-Stakeholder Group meetings published on its website – for example, in a compendium of documents.
5. In accordance with Requirement 2.2, Burkina Faso must ensure that deviations from the statutory procedures for granting and transferring extractive licenses in practice are thoroughly reviewed and fully disclosed, covering all types of extractive licenses granted and transferred during the period under review as part of each EITI reporting cycle. To strengthen implementation, EITI Burkina Faso is encouraged to draw on recent performance reviews by the Technical Services Inspectorate and the Court of Auditors to inform the ongoing review of Decree No. 2017-36 establishing criteria for the granting of licences, to ensure that the system is less inefficient.
6. In accordance with Requirement 2.4, Burkina Faso must disclose the full text of all contracts and licences, including significant exploration contracts, that have been awarded, entered into or amended on or after 1 January 2021, as well as any annexes and amendments to such contracts. In addition, Burkina Faso must maintain an overview of all active contracts and licences that are publicly available, including exploration contracts, indicating which contracts and licences are publicly available and which are not (yet) publicly available, with specific links to the respective licence and contract publications.
7. In accordance with Requirement 2.5, Burkina Faso must disclose the identity of the beneficial owners and legal owners of all legal entities that apply for or hold an interest in an oil, gas or mining licence. The measures to be taken include the following:

• Ensure that the legal and regulatory framework is implemented for the collection and public disclosure of beneficial ownership information of all companies applying for or holding extractive licenses. The Government is encouraged to establish its publicly accessible digital register of beneficial owners, as set out in the Government Beneficial Ownership Order 2022.
• Require all companies holding extractive licenses to disclose information about their beneficial owners, including at the time of application. This information should include all the data points listed in Requirement 2.5, including the identity of any politically exposed persons. Develop guidance for extractive companies on the public disclosure of their beneficial owners, where appropriate.
• Introduce adequate safeguards to ensure the reliability and completeness of such data. Conduct regular assessments of the completeness and reliability of beneficial ownership disclosures by all companies holding or applying for extractive rights.
• Name the entities that have not disclosed information about their beneficial owners.
• Publicly disclose the legal owners of all companies applying for and holding extractive rights.

The Multi-Stakeholder Group is required to publish an assessment of the completeness and reliability of beneficial ownership information collected and disclosed to date. The Burkina Faso EITI is encouraged to examine ways to establish an effective mechanism for the cadastre to access data from the Trade and Personal Property Credit Register (Registre de commerce et de crédit mobilier – RCCM) as part of its licensing process.

1. In accordance with Requirement 2.6, Burkina Faso must ensure that its EITI Report covers all extractive companies that meet the definition of state-owned enterprises set out in Requirement 2.6. Burkina Faso should use its EITI Report to disclose information on the rules and practices relating to the financial relationship between SOEs and the State, including reinvestment and third-party financing, and the terms of any loans or guarantees provided by the State and SOEs to any extractive company or project. All state-owned enterprises with significant revenues in Burkina Faso must publicly disclose their full audited financial statements and make their availability known. To strengthen implementation, Burkina Faso may wish to use its EITI Report to describe rules and practices relating to operating and capital expenditure, procurement, subcontracting and corporate governance – for example, the composition and appointment of Board members, and the Board’s mandate and Code of Conduct.
2. In accordance with Requirement 3.2, Burkina Faso must disclose point-in-time production data, including estimates of production volumes and values related to artisanal, small-scale and semi-mechanised gold mining, possibly based on ANEEMAS estimates for this sector. To strengthen implementation, Burkina Faso is encouraged to publicly disclose the methods used to calculate production volumes and values. It is also recommended that the government disclose more timely data on mining production through the DGMG website.
3. In accordance with Requirement 3.3, Burkina Faso should publish estimates of the volumes and values of informal mineral exports, in order to achieve the objective of providing the basis for addressing export-related issues in the mining sector. It is recommended that state entities systematically publish more timely export data on their own websites. Burkina Faso is encouraged to describe methods for calculating export volumes and values to help improve government oversight of mineral exports.
4. In accordance with Requirement 4.3, Burkina Faso is required to establish the existence, if any, of agreements or sets of agreements relating to the provision of goods and services (including loans, grants or infrastructure works) in partial or total exchange for concessions for the exploration for or production of oil, gas or minerals, or for the physical delivery of such commodities. To achieve this, the Multi-Stakeholder Group and the Independent Administrator should have a clear understanding of the content of such agreements and contracts, the identity of the parties involved, the resources that have been promised by the State, the value of the consideration in terms of benefit streams (e.g. infrastructure works), and the significance of such agreements compared to conventional contracts. Loans backed by natural resources, such as the pre-financing of gold purchases from artisanal activities by ANEEMAS, should be included. Where the Burkina Faso EITI considers such agreements to be significant, it is required to ensure that EITI implementation takes them into account and that disclosures provide a level of detail and disaggregation commensurate with that applied to other payments and revenue streams. EITI Burkina Faso is required to agree a procedure to ensure the quality assurance of the data and information set out above, in accordance with Requirement 4.9.
5. In accordance with Requirement 5.1, Burkina Faso is required to ensure traceability of extractive revenues in the national budget and the same level of transparency and accountability for extractive revenues not included in the national budget. Where revenues are not included in the national budget, their allocation should be explained and links to relevant financial reports should be provided where appropriate, particularly with a view to clarifying recent changes in the management of mining revenues earmarked for sub-national transfers. To strengthen implementation, Burkina Faso is encouraged to use data standards such as the Government Finance Statistical Classification, building on its summary data submission, to classify government revenue flows from the extractive sector.
6. In accordance with Requirement 6.1, Burkina Faso is required to fully disclose all mandatory social and environmental expenditures in order to provide a basis for assessing extractive companies’ compliance with their legal and contractual obligations. In particular, all extractive companies that incur mandatory social expenditure and make environmental payments to government must publicly disclose such expenditure and payments, where material, at the levels of disaggregation set out in Requirement 6.1(a) and (b). To strengthen implementation, Burkina Faso could disaggregate voluntary environmental expenditure from voluntary social expenditure, so that the public can better understand the discretionary social and environmental contributions of mining companies, as well as to provide a basis for assessing extractive companies’ compliance with their environmental obligations.
7. In accordance with Requirement 7.3, Burkina Faso should ensure that corrective actions, recommendations from the EITI statement and other relevant studies are taken into account – so as to make implementation a continuous learning process that contributes to policy formulation – and ensure that they are reflected in annual work plans. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 7.3, the Multi-stakeholder Group is encouraged to consider recommendations in terms of strengthening government systems and natural resource governance and to follow up on recommendations contained in extractive sector performance audits.

Burkina Faso is encouraged to consider the following recommendations to strengthen implementation of the EITI:

Results and impact

1. To strengthen implementation of Requirement 1.5, Burkina Faso is encouraged to present more explicitly the contribution of EITI objectives to national priorities and how implementation has promoted ongoing reform efforts. Burkina Faso is encouraged to regularly review the scope of EITI disclosures, ensuring that they cover priority areas related to artisanal mining and related issues and governance challenges, and that they include follow-up on the findings of performance reviews and audits that are considered priority areas. Burkina Faso is encouraged to link the annual EITI work plan to a monitoring framework.
2. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 7.1, Burkina Faso could expand its outreach activities, including dissemination and capacity-building initiatives, to address specific issues or topics that national and local stakeholders identify as priorities, including artisanal mining or gold smuggling. Burkina Faso is encouraged to engage more organisations in these activities to build the capacity of new CSOs in mining communities.
3. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 7.2, Burkina Faso is encouraged to ensure the regular and routine publication of priority datasets on the open data portal to ensure its sustainability and reliability as a source of datasets for extractive industries analysis. Burkina Faso is also encouraged to consider publishing data in machine-readable formats such as CSV, JSON, XML and to build on the EITI open data policy.
4. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 7.4, Burkina Faso is encouraged to monitor and evaluate the extent to which the objectives and activities included in the work plan sufficiently reflect stakeholder needs and ongoing reform efforts.

Stakeholder engagement

To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 1.2, the company college could consider reviewing its representativeness among the various industrial players in Burkina Faso. To further strengthen implementation, the College of Companies is encouraged to improve its initiatives to raise awareness of EITI issues among members outside the Chamber of Mines.

Transparency

1. To reinforce the implementation of Requirement 2.1, Burkina Faso is encouraged to strengthen its use of EITI disclosures to monitor ongoing and planned reforms to the legal framework and fiscal regime applicable to the extractive industries. It could also consider ways to further expand the government’s systematic disclosure of this information, including ongoing reforms.
2. To strengthen implementation in accordance with Requirement 2.3, Burkina Faso is encouraged to review the completeness and reliability of the licence information available on its mining cadastre, to ensure that the information included is up-to-date and reliable. Burkina Faso is encouraged to ensure that the latest licence grants, transfers and renewals are published on the online cadastre in a timely manner, and that loading times and data access options are improved to facilitate analysis.
3. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 3.1, the Multi-stakeholder Group is encouraged to prepare and publish a brief history of the extractive industries in the country, which could also cover the potential for informal and small-scale mining.
4. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 4.1, Burkina Faso is encouraged to deepen its work on revenue integrity and to identify the reasons for discrepancies in company payments, in order to address them and thereby strengthen revenue collection. Burkina Faso is also encouraged to ensure that its estimates of total government revenues include only government revenues and not the turnover of state-owned enterprises such as ANEEMAS.
5. To strengthen implementation of Requirement 4.5, Burkina Faso is encouraged to use its EITI Report to work with extractive state-owned companies to increase systematic disclosure of transactions involving them, building on the publication of audited financial statements of some of these companies to date.
6. To strengthen implementation of Requirement 6.2, Burkina Faso is encouraged to review annually the existence of quasi-fiscal spending by extractive state-owned enterprises, with a view to ensuring comprehensive and reliable disclosure of quasi-fiscal spending by all state-owned enterprises, commensurate with other payments and revenues disclosed through EITI reporting. Burkina Faso could extend its disclosure of subsidised phosphate sales to publish calculations of the total annual costs of this subsidy.
7. To strengthen implementation of Requirement 6.3, Burkina Faso is encouraged to use its EITI process to draw conclusions on the ongoing study covering artisanal and small-scale mining and its links to illicit financial flows, and to follow up on recommendations from the study, in collaboration with ANEEMAS. To strengthen implementation, BUMIGEB is encouraged to regularly publish data in the statistical bulletin, in Excel or another type of open format, so as to facilitate use of the published data. In doing so, it could draw on the workflow dedicated to digital transformation being carried out by the DGESS.
8. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 6.4, Burkina Faso is encouraged to review actual practice in relation to the environmental management of extractive activities such as payments to the Rehabilitation Fund. Burkina Faso has the possibility of using the EITI as a tool for monitoring compliance with the recommendations of the Court of Auditors, which would make it possible to reduce the environmental and social impacts of mining sites on mining communities.
9. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 4.7, Burkina Faso is encouraged to examine ways to systematically disclose revenues received by the government, broken down by project. Burkina Faso could use its EITI disclosures on project-level payments to review revenue collection and forecast possible future revenue scenarios.
10. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 4.8, Burkina Faso is encouraged to publish the statistical bulletin in an open format (e.g. Excel) and to consider disaggregating this data by project to ensure more timely publication of EITI data.
11. To reinforce the implementation of Requirement 4.9, reporting companies are encouraged to publish their financial statements and audit reports. The government is encouraged to publish the public report of the Court of Auditors on a timelier basis, so that the opinion and recommendations of the Court of Auditors that accompany the EITI Report can be consulted, or to append the chapter on certification of extractive revenues and recommendations to the EITI Report. In order to further improve the reliability and quality of data, the Court of Auditors might consider it appropriate to carry out a performance audit of mining tax collection.
12. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 5.2, Burkina Faso could extend the scope of its EITI disclosures to monitor the effective management by sub-national governments of the revenues they receive in the form of sub-national extractive revenue transfers. The Burkina Faso EITI may also wish to agree a procedure for assessing the quality of data on reported transfer figures in the absence of disaggregated disclosure by municipalities. EITI Burkina Faso could consider establishing which recommendations in the Court of Auditors’ performance audit report require further follow-up and use its EITI process to provide an overview of progress in implementing the Court of Auditors’ recommendations.
13. To strengthen the implementation of Requirement 5.3, Burkina Faso could build on its implementation of the EITI to ensure public disclosure of information by the government, which will broaden public understanding and debate on issues related to revenue sustainability and resource dependence. Such information could include, for example, assumptions over the next few years in the budget cycle regarding forecasts of production, commodity prices and extractive revenues, as well as the share of future budget revenues expected from the extractive sector, in accordance with Requirement 5.3.c.

The government and all stakeholders are encouraged to consider these recommendations and document Burkina Faso’s responses to them as part of the next annual review of the results and impact of EITI implementation.

Context

In January 2020, the EITI Board agreed that Burkina Faso had made “significant progress with substantial improvements” in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard. Burkina Faso’s next Validation was scheduled to begin on 23 July 2020. In December 2020 and October 2022, the EITI Board made revisions to the Validation timetable, with the launch of Burkina Faso’s Validation scheduled for 1 January 2023.

EITI Burkina Faso has compiled the documentation for Validation based on the data collection templates approved by the Board covering stakeholder engagement, transparency and results and impact. The files are available on the Burkina Faso EITI website. The International Secretariat’s Validation team prepared an initial assessment, based on the Validation process and the Validation Guide. In accordance with the Validation process, a public call for stakeholders’ views on EITI implementation was launched from 15 November 2022 to 1 January 2023. Virtual stakeholder consultations were held in January and February 2023. On 7 June 2023, the draft assessment was sent to the GMP for comment. GMP’s comments were received on 21 July 2023. The International Secretariat reviewed the comments and responded to national stakeholders before finalising the assessment.

In accordance with Article 4.c of Section 4 of the 2019 EITI Standard, the overall assessment includes the scores for «Stakeholder Engagement», «Transparency» and «Results and Impact», as well as an overall numerical score. The score achieved for the components is the average of the points awarded for each relevant Requirement. The points awarded for the Effectiveness and Sustainability indicators are added to the score for the «Results and Impact» component. The overall score is the average of the scores obtained for the three components.

Source: Le Burkina Faso a obtenu un score global modéré dans la mise en œuvre de la Norme ITIE 2019 | EITI