Burkina Faso’s digital leap: can it work without safety and schools?
In Ouagadougou, patriotic displays light up the skyline as the transitional government promotes its digital transformation agenda. The ‘Avenue of Services to the People’ stands as the flagship of the Popular Progressive Revolution (RPP), featuring e-criminal records, e-nationality certificates, and the digitalization of Universal Health Insurance (AMU). Each project aims to portray a modern, connected, and efficient state.
But beneath this technological façade and the triumphant statistics touted at ministerial meetings, a much harsher reality lurks. This rush to digitize administration looks like a publicity stunt designed by and for urban elites, while the country’s foundations crumble.
Why the digital showcase falls flat for most Burkinabè
On paper, digitalizing administrative services has clear advantages. Expanding e-criminal records or digitizing court documents are impressive technical achievements. But who really benefits from these tools?
Internet penetration barely exceeds 20%, and 4G coverage is mostly limited to major cities. For most Burkinabè, digital administration is a distant dream. Celebrating online AMU registration as a major success—when it reaches only 1.3% of the population—is misleading political spin.
Worse, this approach widens a severe social gap: on one side, a connected urban minority can access documents with a few clicks; on the other, millions are invisible to the system, lacking even basic mobile network access in this two-tier modernization.
Security and education: the unshakable foundations
For digital state transformation to be meaningful, citizens must first live in conditions that allow them to engage with it. National priorities must be reorganized around two absolute imperatives.
Security: the bedrock of true citizenship
No digital system can thrive in a territory fractured by terror. With over two million internally displaced people fleeing extremist violence, Burkinabè priorities aren’t accessing civil documents on a smartphone—they’re survival, shelter, and reclaiming their lands.
Digital public services cannot be deployed in communes under terror control or where telecom infrastructures have been sabotaged. Without security, a dematerialized state is a hollow entity, detached from the land it claims to serve.
Key realities demand immediate action:
- Physical access before digital entry: You cannot dematerialize public services where the state’s presence is absent.
- Right to life over right to e-services: Re-establishing territorial sovereignty and securing people and property must come first.
Education: the gateway to digital inclusion
Even if security were restored and internet rolled out nationwide, literacy remains a barrier. The majority of Burkinabè lack basic reading, writing, or even computer skills. Offering complex web platforms to citizens denied foundational education is a systemic absurdity.
Thousands of schools remain closed due to conflict. Pouring vast financial and human resources into servers and virtual platforms while generations of Burkinabè children are denied schooling is a strategic misstep.
Building progress on solid ground
Attempting to digitize administration before securing the nation and educating its people is like painting the façade of a house with crumbling foundations. The logical sequence of development demands:
- First: Reclaim territorial sovereignty and restore security so people can live and produce on their land.
- Second: Launch a massive education drive to empower citizens to read, comprehend, and interact with modern society.
- Finally: Only when these fundamentals are solidified can digitalization fulfill its true potential as a universal service.
Technological progress must not remain an urban privilege or a political communication tool. Burkina Faso’s core mission is to secure its territory to restore peace, then educate its people to enable their autonomy.