Mr Salifou Diallo, the president of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso, was received by the president of the National Council, Jürg Stahl (SVP/ZH), on 15 March. In the course of his working visit focusing on Swiss parliamentary procedures and cooperation projects between the two countries, he also met with the president of the Council of States, Ivo Bischofberger (CVP/AI), and the president of the Swiss Confederation, Doris Leuthard. Mr Diallo, accompanied by three deputies and senior officials from the National Assembly of Burkina Faso, also visited the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and Vaud University Hospital (CHUV).
During their meeting, the National Council president congratulated Mr Diallo on the transparency of the 2015 legislative elections in Burkina Faso and on the vast amount of work accomplished by the Burkinabe parliament culminating in the drafting of a new constitution. Mr Diallo stressed that Switzerland was one of the first European countries to assist Burkina Faso during the terrible drought of 1973 and he thanked Switzerland for the warm welcome and its valuable support to the people of Burkina Faso.
After that meeting the president of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso paid a courtesy visit to the president of the Council of States, Ivo Bischofberger. Mr Diallo sought Switzerland’s assistance in establishing a system of vocational education and training in Burkina Faso to train young people in technical occupations to allow them to find jobs in key sectors of Burkina Faso’s economy, such as mining and agriculture.
There was also an official meeting with members of the Swiss-African inter-parliamentary group – chaired by National Council member Isabelle Chevalley (GL/VD), which initiated the visit – and with the delegation to the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF). Mrs Chevalley raised the issue of the lack of structures for conserving agricultural produce (potatoes, tomatoes, mangos, etc.) which leads to enormous waste, but also the need to set up processing plants in the country.
The difficulties encountered by Burkina Faso in controlling its production of gold – where nearly 30% of gold mined in the country is not declared to the state – were discussed during a working meeting between Ambassador Manuel Sager, director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and President Diallo. Switzerland has a strategic position in the gold trade; around 70% of the world’s gold is refined in Switzerland with a large share originating from Burkina Faso. The SDC has been active in the country for forty years, pursuing cooperation in areas it considers as priorities for Burkina Faso. It funds projects in the areas of basic education, vocational training, rural development, food security and governance. Burkina Faso is also a Swiss development cooperation priority country.
The delegation from Burkina Faso had the opportunity to visit the Federal Institute of Technology in (EPFL) during its time in Switzerland. It was able to find out about the EPFL’s MOOCs (massive open online courses) for Africa, as well as the ‘EssentialTech’ programme, which aims to create technologies adapted to developing countries. These two programmes could provide solutions for the future of countries in West Africa.
The first steps of a future partnership between the Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV) and the Centre hospitalier universitaire Yalgado in Ouagadougou (CHUYOl) were outlined at a meeting at the CHUV with the hospital’s director, Pierre-François Leyvraz, the head of the cardio-vascular surgery service, René Prêtre, and Vaud Cantonal Councillor Pierre-Yves Maillard.
The president of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso rounded off his official working visit to Switzerland by paying tribute to two victims from Valais of an attack that took place in Ouagadougou on 15 January 2016. He also met with the victims’ families in Sion accompanied by Esther Waeber-Kalbermatten the president of the Cantonal Council of the Republic and Canton of Valais. He then laid a wreath on the graves of the deceased and met the mayor of Lens (VS) and the local population.
Mr Salifou Diallo was elected president of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso on 30 December 2015. He was one of the founders of the Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP), together with Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, the country’s current president. The party was created in January 2014 in opposition to the party of the country’s former president Blaise Campaoré. The MPP went on to win the presidential and legislative elections of 29 November 2015. Mr Diallo was recently elected president of the MPP. The National Assembly of Burkina Faso has 127 members elected for a term of office of 5 years.