Burundi Development Futures

The report analyzes Burundi's development prospects, highlighting a 'Current Path' characterized by slow growth, high poverty, and governance challenges. It models eight sectoral scenarios—Governance, Demographics and Health, Education, Large Infrastructure and Leapfrogging, Agriculture, Manufacturing, AfCFTA, and Financial Flows—to demonstrate how targeted interventions could improve GDP per capita and reduce extreme poverty. A 'Combined scenario' suggests that an integrated policy push could dramatically increase GDP to US$17.2 billion by 2043 and reduce the extreme poverty rate by 49 percentage points compared to the Current Path, though this would result in higher carbon emissions.

• On the Current Path, Burundi's GDP is projected to reach US$7.7 billion by 2043, reflecting an annual average growth rate of 4.6% from 2022 to 2043, which is significantly lower than the targets in the National Development Plan 2018–2027.
• Burundi's population is growing rapidly and is projected to almost double to 22.4 million by 2043 on the Current Path, driven by high fertility, limited family planning education, and poor healthcare access.
• The agriculture sector provides income for approximately 86% of the population, but low productivity and climate-related shocks lead to food insecurity; on the Current Path, agriculture import dependence is expected to rise to 53.7% of total demand by 2043.
• Infrastructure deficits, particularly in electricity and roads, severely constrain economic modernization; only 11.7% of the population had electricity access in 2020, and the share of the rural population within 2 km of an all-weather road is projected to reach only 40.5% by 2043 on the Current Path.
• Burundi faces severe governance challenges, ranking 169th out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index; the Governance scenario suggests that improving security, capacity, and inclusion could increase overall governance performance by nearly 20% over the Current Path by 2043.
• The implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could significantly reduce Burundi's trade deficit from a projected 48.3% of GDP on the Current Path to 12.6% of GDP by 2043.
• The 'Combined scenario'—integrating all eight sectoral interventions—would result in a GDP of US$17.2 billion by 2043 and reduce the extreme poverty rate by approximately 49 percentage points compared to the Current Path, meaning 11.2 million fewer people in extreme poverty.
• Rapid economic growth under the Combined scenario would lead to a 900% increase in carbon emissions between 2019 and 2043, reaching 2 million tons, which is 0.7 million tons higher than the Current Path.

APA

Yeboua, K., & Jobarteh, M. (2026). Burundi Development Futures. Institute for Security Studies. https://futures.issafrica.org/geographic/countries/burundi/

Chicago

Yeboua, Kouassi, and Mustapha Jobarteh. Burundi Development Futures. Institute for Security Studies, 2026. https://futures.issafrica.org/geographic/countries/burundi/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Yeboua |first1=Kouassi |last2=Jobarteh |first2=Mustapha |title=Burundi Development Futures |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=28 May 2026 |url=https://futures.issafrica.org/geographic/countries/burundi/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{yeboua2026burundi, author = {Yeboua, Kouassi and Jobarteh, Mustapha}, title = {{Burundi Development Futures}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2026}, month = may, url = {https://futures.issafrica.org/geographic/countries/burundi/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }