Fieldvisit Gaoua

I went with my colleague on a field visit to check the results of the 'Fond Commun Genre'. The Dutch Embassy is one of the sponsors of this UNDPA run fund. This fund finances small projects to create more equality between the sexes. This is a.o. done by educating men and women at the same time in a subject, for example a 'leadership training' or 'water resource training'. This way the men do not feel they are getting emancipated, but in fact they are a little bit. The women get a bit more selfrespect and a bit more courage to speak up (against their husbands and society as a whole).















An example of a meeting room, as guests we got to sit on the slightly more comfortable chairs behind the bureau.

These field trips are tiring, you travel and sit in meeting rooms in the heat, speaking french. However a fieldvisit says more then hundreds of reports. For example we noted that in the water project women were involved, but not given any key positions nor did they realy have anything to say. In other words the fund was well spent, but on water maintenance and not on genre education.















A water pump managed by a team trained by the programme.

Small things we as westerners don't think about. This little waterpump needs a committee to make sure it is maintained, people come literally for miles to this pump.

The landscape in the south-west was more hilly and a bit greener, therefore more beautiful then other parts of Burkina. For those interested look at a map for Gaoua, this waterpump was more to the west near the border with Ghana in the middle of nowhere.




















Just to show I wasn't wasting taxpayers money. Here is where I stayed. 5.000 CFA (7,50 euro) a night. We didn't smoke cigars, eat caviar and drink champagne. In fact there were no vegatables, fish and even the coca cola was finished, 'this is Gaoua' was the cool factual respons of our waiter. So I had rice with peanut sauce and spagetti bolognaise: simple but nice.