African art
Burkina Faso is a small, landlocked country north of Ghana and south of Mali and Niger. Economically, it is one of the four or five poorest countries in the world. Culturally, it is extremely rich. In part this is because so few people from Burkina have become Muslim or Christian. Many of the ancient artistic traditions for which Africa is so well known have been preserved in Burkina Faso because so many people continue to honor the ancestral spirits, and the spirits of nature. In great part they honor the spirits through the use of masks and carved figures. Many of the countries to the north of Burkina Faso had become predominantly Muslim, while many of the countries to the south of Burkina Faso are heavily Christian. In contrast many of the people of Burkina Faso continue to offer prayers and sacrifices to the spirits of nature and to the spirits of their ancestors. The result is that they continue to use the sorts of art that we see in museums in Europe and America.
Health in Burkina Faso
The national health system includes the public, private and traditional medical and pharmacopoeial sub-sectors. In the area of governance, it has made significant progress both organically and functionally.The main achievements are mainly the strengthening of the decentralization of the health system undertaken since 1993 with the establishment of the district health system (63 districts in 2007) and the development of community health. The effective involvement of all actors in the development of the health system, the introduction of emergency care, the subsidization of benefits for the mother and the child, have improved the efficiency and use of health services. Burkina joined the International Partnership for Health and Related Initiatives (IHP +) in May 2010, which aims to increase resources and efforts for health, as well as the effectiveness of aid in the sector. The financing system of the health sector is mainly based on a tripod consisting of the state budget, external inputs (bilateral and multilateral) and cost recovery of health care and services to users (households). The offer of care is organized around public and private structures.The public sub-sector of care with three levels that provide primary, secondary and tertiary care. Approval of modern medicines (specialty and generic), traditional pharmacopoeial drugs, medical consumables and medical biology reagents is assigned to the Drug Regulatory Directorate (DRP). For each Marketing Authorization (MA) application , a related dossier is evaluated by experts. In 2010, Burkina Faso revised its national health policy and developed a National Health Development Plan [2] covering the period 2011 to 2020. Burkina Faso increased its health care workforce between 2006 and 2010, but not sufficiently to meet the population’s growing needs. Burkina Faso suffers from a severe lack of qualified health workers at all levels including support staff. There is less than 1 (0.45) physician per 10,000 people, 3.57 nurses per 10,000 people, and 2.39 midwives per 10,000 (Burkina Faso Ministry of Health, Statistical Yearbook 2010).