A long-term partnership,
carried through culture

In candour, before anything else

Burkina Faso is not among the countries in formal dialogue at TICAD (the Tokyo International Conference on African Development), and the Japanese Foreign Ministry classifies travel there as requiring caution. The project is not tied to the African policy of the Japanese government.

And yet, there is a reason we continue to engage with this country.

This project is not an expansion into a new market, nor is it one-sided aid. It is the long, slow work of letting people meet people, and culture meet culture, directly, through culture itself. It does not promise an economic return. It offers companies who find value in such an undertaking the chance to walk alongside a country that is, in earnest, working to reclaim its own culture. In what follows, the risks are stated openly, and the meaning of the work is set out alongside them.

The road Burkina Faso is choosing now

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, with a population of roughly twenty-three million. Its capital, Ouagadougou, is home to an estimated three million people. The administration of President Ibrahim Traoré, formed after the change of government in September 2022, has placed at the centre of its national course a stepping back from neocolonial relations and a recovering of full sovereignty. According to IMF estimates, real GDP growth in 2023 and 2024 has held steady in the mid-five-percent range.

Beyond economic policy, the same direction is being carried, concretely, into the spheres of education and culture: stepping out of the institutions long subordinated to Western frameworks of value, and rebuilding the country's own cultural ground. School uniforms are being changed to fabrics from the country's own textile traditions. The use of indigenous languages in official documents is being extended. Seen from outside, these may appear small. They are, in fact, the serious labour of a country setting out to take back the roots of its own culture.

That labour resonates, in places, with what Japan worked through from the Meiji era onward — the same struggle to learn from outside without losing what is one's own. The rejection of the proposal for the abolition of racial discrimination at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; the post-war reception of Japan as an "economic animal" — these are experiences of being placed at the margins, as the alien element, by the West, and they are part of our own memory. This project rests on that shared experience, and is one attempt to build a long relationship through culture.

It is also worth knowing that Burkina Faso, while not large in economic scale, stands out in West Africa for its cultural influence. FESPACO (the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou) is the largest such festival on the continent. SIAO (the Ouagadougou International Arts and Crafts Fair) draws traditional crafts from across Africa. Both gather observers and participants from around the world. There is a long-built record here of functioning as a pan-African cultural hub.

The crisis of griot transmission — why this matters now

The traditional music of West Africa has, for the most part, been carried orally by certain hereditary families known as griots. From childhood, griots learn many instruments, commit a vast repertoire to memory, and gain their experience by playing music in and for the community. Their work has never been confined to performance alone — it has included the making of instruments, their repair, and the carrying of music for the community as a whole.

In recent years, the occasions on which griots play have been visibly shrinking. The contraction of community ritual, the inflow of commercial music, the difficulty of obtaining the plants from which instruments are made, the rising drive among the young toward schooling — these have combined, until griots find themselves directing their own children away from the music. The ground on which the tradition rests is giving way, generation by generation.

In response, our local partner ADEC/BF-J put forward this approach: open the channels of transmission inside the schools, so that children from outside griot families can also enter the music. This is not a solution imported from elsewhere. It came out of the discussions of those who stand within the cultural life of Burkina Faso. The griots themselves, and the municipal authorities of Ouagadougou, have given their agreement.

The project itself — a six-month pilot phase

Traditional music teachers are placed into the public primary schools of Ouagadougou and teach the children directly. Lessons are held twice a week, sixty to ninety minutes each, in groups of six, so that each child can be taught according to their own aptitude. Six instruments are used: djembe, bendre (drum), tama (talking drum), kanya (a small metal instrument), maracas, and balafon (wooden xylophone). All are made by the griots themselves.

In time, the instruments will be given to the schools, so that they remain there after the lessons end — used not only in class but at school events (ceremonies, cultural days), becoming part of the educational life of the school.

Starting May 2026 — first and second stages

The pilot phase begins within May 2026 and runs in two stages. In the first stage (three months), four public primary schools in the Bissigjin area of the city's 8th district will receive lessons, four sessions per week. We will be watching carefully: how the children respond, how the teachers and pupils come to know each other, what comes up on the operational side. In the second stage (three months), on what has been learned, the project widens to more schools and moves to an eight-sessions-per-week structure. The aim is to broaden the reach without losing the quality of teaching.

The pilot phase will close between the end of 2026 and, at the latest, the end of the Japanese fiscal year (March 2027). At its close, we will hold a public presentation, with municipal and educational figures, parents, and members of the local community. From there, the project will extend by stages across the 12 districts of Ouagadougou (between 220 and 280 public primary schools in total).

A project carried by three parties

The path so far

The shape of the pilot-phase budget

The budget has two parts. The field budget covers what is needed to carry out the project on the ground in Burkina Faso. The management cost covers what is needed in Japan: legal-entity operation, contract management, and accounting reports — work led by FT Music Office.

The field budget covers: the making of six kinds of instruments (djembe, bendre, tama, kanya, maracas, balafon) by hand, by the griots; teaching fees for the lead instructors and assistants; and operating costs on the ground (children's travel, communications, printing, and so on). The management cost covers: legal-entity accounting and tax management with our retained tax accountant, international remittance fees, contract management (bilingual Japanese–French), quarterly reports to corporate sponsors, and the operation of this website.

Venue costs are borne by the municipal authorities of Ouagadougou and are not part of this budget.
Lessons can begin once one third of the instruments are ready.
A line-by-line breakdown, the unit cost of each instrument, and the total for the pilot phase are set out in the full proposal, available on request.

Operating structure and transparency

Funds from corporate partners are handled through the path set out below. In Japan, continuous accounting is carried out by our retained tax accountant; on the ground, ADEC/BF-J's accounts officer prepares monthly reports broken down by use of funds and submits them to the Japanese side. Corporate partners receive quarterly field reports, and an annual summary report that sets out the results of the year and the financial breakdown of the project as a whole.

Contact

For enquiries regarding partnership in this project, please be in touch through the contact form. Banking details for transfers will be provided separately, on receipt of intent to partner.

We hope that this project may, for your company, become the occasion of a relationship with Burkina Faso — one carried through cultural dialogue, and meaningful over the long term.