This presentation gives a descriptive and detailed overview of the construction industry in Burkina Faso. It shows the importance and limitations of the systems. It also gives an idea on the situation of the construction industry. The study has been meticulously conducted supported by online references, library documents and interviews with local construction experts, architects and engineers.

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IN
BURKINA FASO
by
Abdoul-Aziz GANSONRE

2. CONTENT
• INTRODUCTION
• WHERE IS BURKINA FASO?
• BASIC INFORMATION
• GENERAL PRESENTATION OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
• PUBLIC CONSTRUCTIONS
• PRIVATE CONSTRUCTIONS
• THE ROLE OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IN BURKINA FASO
• INFRASTRUCTURES
• GENERAL CONSTRAINTS
• CONCLUSION

3. INTRODUCTION
• Burkina Faso is a developing country where the majority of the population
lives below the poverty. It is a landlocked country which makes it highly
dependent on its neighbors for transit and trade.
• The construction industry is very active because the country is trying to
find its way out from under-development. Plenty of Infrastructures such as
roads, dams, barrages and buildings either commercial or residential have
to be built.
• With a growth of over 7.5% per year since 2001, the Construction & Civil
Engineering sector is expanding in Burkina Faso.

4. WHERE IS BURKINA FASO?
• IN WEST-AFRICA
• Don’t have access to the sea because surrounded by 6 countries.

5. BASIC INFORMATION
• Population: 16,241,811 people
• Capital city: Ouagadougou
• Area: 274,000km²
• Cities: 45
• Main language: French
• Independence day: Aug. 5th, 1960
• Currency: 1NTD = 16 XCfa
• Economy: based on agriculture,
livestock, gold and cotton
exportations.

6. GENERAL PRESENTATION
OF THE CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY

7. OVERVIEW
• The major public work projects are mainly focused on the
road infrastructures required in order to open up the
country and to contribute to its economic development.
• The projects also concern the construction/rehabilitation
of dams and the reinforcement of water supply
infrastructures.
• Burkina Faso annually invests over EUR 150 million in the
Construction & Civil Engineering field.

8. BUDGET
The budget is first well defined by the all the contractors and owners
involved in the project.
ORGANISATION
• Project owner
• Delegated contracting owner
• Project Manager
• Builder: he is the responsible for the work on the field including the
equipment and all the materials needed for the project

9. PROJECT OWNER
• He is in the owner of the whole project. In
Burkina Faso, it can be an individual, an
entity or a group of investors.
• The project owner or contracting owner
“Maître d’Ouvrage” (in French) is in charge of
the management of construction investment
and the conduct of operations.

10. DELEGATED CONTRACTING OWNER
• He is not always present in all construction
projects, but he can be specially chosen by the
Project owner to direct operations, including the
management of the budget.
• In general, he has a great knowledge and
experience in the construction system. He is under
the order of the Project owner and is asked to
respect the deadlines for the work.
• In Burkina Faso, he is called “maître d'ouvrage
délégué”

11. PROJECT MANAGER
• He is often an architect or an engineer in
charge of the design, creation and
implementation of a proposed construction
or development of space .
• He can also be called Site foreman,
supervisor of works, subcontractor.
• In the local terms, he is called “Maître
d’oeuvre”

12. 3. GENERAL CONSTRUCTION
METHODS
Artisanal construction
Industrial construction
In Burkina, the most used is Artisanal construction methods. This
has many challenges:
• Unskilled main power
• Unsophisticated building materials
• Archaic techniques

13. MAIN CONSTRUCTION ENTERPRISES IN BURKINA FASO
The economic pattern of the Construction & Civil Engineering sector
consists of a few local companies or subsidiaries of international
groups able to meet the requirements of the public and private
procurement offers and of several small structures.
The local companies able to execute works on the main sites are
primarily the following:
• general construction: Boutros, BTM, COGEB, Fadoul-Technibois and
Kanazoe, SABATP, ATP.
• construction of roads : COGEC, EIEF, Fadoul-Technibois, EBOMAF
• construction of buildings: Sol Confort & Décor, Echa, Ecobaa, Lafchal,
Sosaf..

14. EXECUTION AGENCIES
• Execution agencies are structures which make expertise in
technical and design, usually under the supervision of an
engineer.
• Execution agencies have a role in assisting, advising and
controlling public and private construction works. They can
also act as delegated contracting owners.
• In Burkina Faso, many execution agencies have the
international standards and work on all the construction
project all over the country. The most important are:
APAV, VERITAS, AGEIM, ACE.

15. FOREIGN ENTERPRISES
• French companies are largely represented by
Sogea Satom (Vinci), Colas, (Bouygues) and Sade
(Véolia Environnement).
• A senegale company CSE

16. PUBLIC CONSTRUCTIONS

17. 1. PRESENTATION
• The public constructions in Burkina Faso are mainly funded by
the government, the non-governmental organizations,
foreign aids and privates funds of particulars.
• The public constructions are mainly composed of :
Roads
Sanitary and working buildings
 Dams
Mining infrastructures
The realization of a new international Airport before 2025.

18. 2. STEPS
 After determining the Project owner (P.O), the Delegated
contracting owner (DCO), the project manager (PM)is
chosen by consultations or by a contest.
The PM, the engineers and architects presents to the P.O
and DCO the plans, design and estimations:
• The Basic Preliminary Design: plan, design, conception
• The Detailed Preliminary Design: it is the task where the
engineer can completely describe a product through solid
modeling and drawings.

19.  The PM
launches the consultation record for
construction enterprises and tender documents.
 The Tender documents has 3 main kinds:
 limited consultations: a few construction enterprises
will be consulted and the choice will be made among
them.
 open tender: in the newspapers, magazines, daily revews
and on TV.
 OTC: the construction enterprises is directly chosen by
contractors without any tender.

20. SELECTION PROCEDURE
The choice of construction enterprises is made by the PM. The purchase
orders for the award of a public contract ranges from 2,000 to 10,000
USD.
 Quality-Cost: the choice is made for a construction of High quality no
matter the price. In this case, the budget is undeterminate.
 Lowest bidder: Best quality among the proposals of low budget. Here,
the budget is tight.
 Best cost value: the PM chooses the firm with the best ratio between
quality and cost, technical score price or price + time(ft), and other
variations

21. PRIVATE CONSTRUCTIONS

22. For private constructions the procedure is
almost the same as Public construction, but
there are some differences.

23. DIFFERENCES
The sector of private constructions is more focused
on residential buildings and apartments.
The project owner is often also the project manager.
He conducts by himself the work. But there is always
a builder.
The project owner does not launch a tender
document. He chooses by himself an architect or
engineer that he knows, buys the necessary
equipment and hire the workers.


24. DIFFERENCES
The owner makes his plans by himself or ask to
the architect or engineer to do so.
For the selection of enterprises, the owner often
chooses the lowest bidder, as the budget is often
limited.

25. THE ROLE OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
IN BURKINA FASO

26. • Construction sector is dominated by dualistic private sector of
local and foreign-owned enterprises and formal and informal
enterprises.
• The informal and small-scale enterprises ( bricklaying,
plumbing, painting) play an important role.
• 500 official artisan contractors and construction enterprises
are registered but only 20 enterprises have a solid and serious
reputation.
• Buildings construction make use of formal plans generally
prepared by the architect or civil engineer.
• There 25 independent architectural firms and about 250
qualified civil engineers.

27. The largest locally owned construction firm called “KANAZOE”
undertakes 25% of public works projects such as roads.
The market type in the building sector is:
• Rural traditional housing
• Improved housing
• Villa housing
• Office/commercial/apartment space
• Rural office building
The average contribution of the construction industry to the GDP is
about 12.7%

28. INFRASTRUCTURES

29. ACHIEVEMENTS
CHALLENGES
 Aircraft fleet renewed
rapidly in recent years and
aircraft size aligned to a
hub-and-spoke approach.
 Market thin and
underdeveloped.
 Very concentrated market
with very little competition.
 Safety and security remain
concerns.
 Airport facilities are in
disarray.
 Adoption of ICT promotion
policy and sectoral
 strategy.
 Liberalization and
deregulation of the sector.
 Increased GSM signal
coverage.
 Low level of market power
concentration
 Prices remain high.
 Promote competition at the
international gateways to
SAT 3/WASC
AIR TRANSPORT
ICT

30. ACHIEVEMENTS
POWER
RAILWAYS
CHALLENGES
 Inception of new electricity
law encouraging private
 sector participation.
 Promotion of increased
power trade and
 interconnection to WAPP.
 Limited electrification.
 Supply of power insufficient
to satisfy demand.
 Costs are among the highest
in Africa.
 Good labor productivity,
solid traffic volumes, and
 relatively competitive
average tariffs.
 Recovery of traffic after
Côte d’Ivoire crisis.
 SITARAIL is on track to
achieve its highest- ever
 traffic volume
 Financial distress of
SITARAIL.
 Rebalancing financial
structure of the railway
concession.
 Finding alternative funding
for rehabilitation backlog.

31. ACHIEVEMENTS
CHALLENGES
 Good international
connectivity.
 Adequate design of road
network, given the level of
 traffic.
 Ability to provision for road
maintenance.
 Limited access from rural
farms to markets.
 High transport and transit
costs due to poor logistics.
 Ability to enforce control of
axel loads particularly across
 borders.
 Progress in providing access to
improved water
 and sanitation, particularly in
urban areas.
 Successful private-public
partnership in the water
 utility.
 Water utility among the most
efficient in Africa
 Sanitation MDG is off track.
 Lack of consistent data and
standardized norms for
 monitoring progress in access.
 Improving provision in rural
areas.
ROADS
WATER AND SANITATION

32. INFRASTRUCTURES MAP
Source: AICD Interactive Infrastructure Atlas for Burkina Faso
(http://www.infrastructureafrica.org/aicd).

33. ROADS
• Burkina’s 15,202 km of classified road network length seems, in general,
adequately designed given the level of traffic and the connectivity it
provides.
Burkina Faso’s road indicators benchmarked against Africa’s low- and middle-income countries

34. RAIL
• Burkina Faso has a transnational railway line jointly owned by
Côte d’Ivoire.
• The rail line links the port of Abidjan to Ouagadougou and is a
key conduit for bulk freight from and into the landlocked
hinterland of Burkina Faso.
• People don’t usually travel by train. They use bus. The train is
generally for business and trade uses.

35. AIR TRANSPORT
• Burkina Faso is a minor player in air transportation in West
Africa.
• The country has two international airports (Ouagadougou and
Bobo Dioulasso) but strongly concentrated freight and passenger
international traffic.
• The country is on a huge project of construction of a new airport
35kms away from Ouagadougou. The work may start around
2015 for a 10-year construction process.

36. WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
• Burkina has made significant progress toward ensuring that all
of its population can access improved water.
• According to the JMP, less than 20 percent of the Burkinabè
population had access to improved sanitation in 2003.
• Increased access to improved sanitation has come
predominantly from more latrines
• Upcoming challenges include further extending the service to
rural areas and improving the technology mix in urban areas and
the construction of more dams.

37. GENERAL CONSTRAINTS

38. • Lack of qualified engineers and construction-related equipments
• High factor costs affecting the business operation
• Highly bureaucratic tender process
• Delay of payment
• Requirement of unofficial payment
• Competition with foreign-owned construction companies
• Lack of available business services provided by either
governmental or non-governmental agencies
• Very weak voluntary professional and business associations
• Inadequate accessibility to financial services

39. CONCLUSION
• For countries like Burkina Faso, a small landlocked and agriculture-
dependent economy, an efficient transport system, infrastructures for
water and power are critically important. The politic of the Construction
industry is widely concerned about these infrastructures.
• In addition, urban redevelopment called “OUAGA 2000” was undertaken
almost simultaneously and subsequently a construction boom for
buildings has taken place in the city.
• Burkina Faso is a fertile field for investment because the entire country is a
construction site. However, owing to the absence of any real domestic
capability, most of the larger projects are awarded to foreign-based
construction firms. Therefore, the real challenge is to be able to empower
the local enterprises so that they can benefit from these numerous
construction projects.

40. REFERENCES
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_design_process#Detailed_design
• http://www.izf.net/pages/burkina-faso/4673/
• http://infrastructureafrica.org/system/files/Burkina%20Faso%20ctry%20rpt%20Web.pdf
• http://www.izf.net/pages/burkina-faso/17435/
• http://www.lesite.tv/videotheque/0805.0029.00-la-voute-nubienne-comme-alternative-de-
construction-au-burkina-faso
• http://www.lavoutenubienne.org/sites/default/files/stock/documents/production_terrain/05-10-
00_rapport-evaluation_cloture-partenariat-mae_u-wyss-10-05.pdf
• http://burkinafaso.helvetas.org/fr/activites/projets_burkina_faso/construction_dinfrastructures_
durables_burkina_faso/