Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of 274,200 km2 (105,900 sq mi), bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and the Ivory Coast to the southwest. As of 2021, the country had an estimated population of 20,321,378. Previously called Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), it was renamed Burkina Faso by President Thomas Sankara. Its citizens are known as Burkinabès, and its capital and largest city is Ouagadougou.
Burkina Faso elects on the national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected for a five-year term by the people. The National Assembly has 127 members, elected for a five-year term by proportional representation. Burkina Faso has held democratic elections since 1965. The history of elections has been slightly inconsistent, with the government dynamically changing at the hands of various coups, constitutional changes, and boycotts from various political parties. In 2015, the country experienced its first peaceful and fair election ever. Corruption plagued Burkina Faso's presidential elections for 50 years, but following a coup overthrowing Blaise Compaoré, the nation has seen more democratic and less corrupt electoral processes. Terrorism has played a substantial role in Burkina Faso's elections, with candidates running on the promise to keep the nation safe from the rise of Islamic jihadism they experienced in the 2010s. Historically, a few different parties have held power in Burkina. The Organization for Popular Democracy – Labour Movement was former president Compaoré's party affiliation, and thus they held power from 1987 to 2014. His party took power through a coup, and in 2014 also lost their control when the Regiment of Presidential Security overthrew the government.
Amina Mama is a Nigerian-British writer, feminist and academic. Her main areas of focus have been post-colonial, militarist and gender issues. She has lived in Africa, Europe, and North America, and worked to build relationships between feminist intellectuals across the globe.
Islam in Burkina Faso has a long and varied history. According to the 2010 census, the population of the country is 63.2% Muslim.
Nellie Yvonne McKay was an American academic and author who was the Evjue-Bascom Professor of American and African-American Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also taught in English and women's studies, and is best known as the co-editor of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature.
Ablassé Ouédrago is a Burkinabé economist, diplomat and politician.
Hamallayya or Hamallism is a Sufi ṭarīqah originating in West Africa as an outgrowth from and reaction against the Tijaniyyah brotherhood. It was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by a mystic Muhammad ben Amadu of Maure and Fulani background, as reform movement of Tijaniyyah practice. Stressing opposition to hierarchy and downplaying the importance of education, the movement spread in the 1920s by Amadu's disciple Shaykh Hamahullah bin Muhammad bin Umar (1886–1943) in what was then French Soudan, modern Mali. It first took root amongst Wolof traders living in Nioro, but soon spread to servile caste Muslims in Mauretania and Mali.
Sexism in academia refers to the discrimination and subordination of a particular sex or gender academic institutions, particularly universities, due to the ideologies, practices, and reinforcements that privilege one sex or gender over another. Sexism in academia is not limited to but primarily affects women who are denied the professional achievements awarded to men in their respective fields such as positions, tenure and awards. Sexism in academia encompasses institutionalized and cultural sexist ideologies; it is not limited to the admission process and the under-representation of women in the sciences but also includes the lack of women represented in college course materials and the denial of tenure, positions and awards that are generally accorded to men.
The culture, evolution, and history of women who were born in, live in, and are from the continent of Africa reflect the evolution and history of the African continent itself.
Burkinabe nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Burkina Faso, as amended; the Persons and Family Code, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Burkina Faso. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Burkinabe nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Burkina Faso or abroad to parents with Burkinabe nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.
Ousseina D. Alidou is an Africanist scholar focusing on Muslim women, and a professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literature at Rutgers University. She received a Master of Arts degree in linguistics at the Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey, Niger, and a MA degree in applied linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington where she also obtained a theoretical linguistics PhD. She was a member of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and the 2022 president of the African Studies Association.
Kathleen Staudt is a former professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she held an endowed professorship for western hemispheric trade policy studies. Her courses focused on topics such as public policy, borders, democracy, leadership and civic engagement, and women and politics. After retiring on September 1, 2017, she became Professor Emerita.
Susan Zaeske is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Arts and Arts and Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 2011, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted a Policy on Science and Technology (ECOPOST).
Aili Mari Tripp is a Finnish and American political scientist, currently the Wangari Maathai Professor of Political Science and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Burkina Faso–Niger border is 622 km in length and runs from the tripoint with Mali in the north to the tripoint with Benin in the south.
Constance Virginia Kies was an American nutrition scientist and dietitian. Kies worked as a public school teacher for three years before going against the traditional gender norms of her time and completing an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Over the duration of her 30-year career at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Kies researched nutritional biochemistry. She demonstrated relationships between minerals, proteins, and dietary fiber through pioneering human subject research. Her findings led to advancements in human knowledge of copper and protein metabolism. She was honored with the Borden Award and was a fellow of the American College of Nutrition. Kies was a feminist and a member of the National Organization for Women and the Women's Equity Action League. She died of uterine cancer three months after her diagnosis.
Susan Franceschet is a Canadian political scientist. She is a professor of political science at The University of Calgary. She studies the representation of women both in legislatures and government cabinets, gender quotas for the minimum representation of women in government, and the interaction of gender and public policy. She has written about women's participation in the politics of Chile.
The Union des Femmes du Niger (UFN) was a women's organisation in Niger, which was active from 1959 to 1974 and was affiliated to the Nigerien Progressive Party. It advocated, with limited success, for increases in women's rights.
Bibata Ouédraogo is a Burkinabé feminist, women's rights activist and former school teacher.
