Liberation in Action: Perspective on How Politics is Rewriting Burkina Faso's Sustainable Economic Future

ABSTRACT: Despite growing attention to political instability, security crises, and headline macroeconomic indicators in the Sahel, existing analyses of Burkina Faso’s recent reforms remain fragmented and largely technocratic. Studies typically examine mining, debt, agriculture, or growth in isolation, offering limited insight into how political power actively structures economic strategy in post-coup contexts. This article addresses that gap by advancing an integrated political–economic framework that conceptualizes Burkina Faso’s post-2022 transformation as a deliberate “liberation economy,” rather than a sequence of disconnected policy responses. Under the leadership of Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the state has pursued resource nationalization, debt sovereignty, expanded agricultural support, and regional realignment through the Alliance of Sahel States. Drawing on comparative insights from post-liberation states and synthesizing recent macroeconomic, sectoral, and governance indicators, the article demonstrates how these measures function as mutually reinforcing political instruments aimed at reclaiming sovereignty, consolidating domestic legitimacy, and recalibrating external dependencies. Evidence points to a post-2022 recovery in GDP growth, a sharp easing of inflation, and record cereal production, alongside increased state control over gold assets, even as investor confidence and institutional transparency remain constrained. By embedding sustainability within economic, social, institutional, and geopolitical dimensions, the article argues that Burkina Faso’s liberation economy is neither inherently sustainable nor unsustainable, but conditionally viable. Its durability depends on whether political sovereignty can be translated into institutional capacity, equitable distribution, and predictable governance. The study contributes to sustainable development scholarship by demonstrating that, in fragile and post-colonial contexts, sustainability is fundamentally political, shaped as much by legitimacy, power, and state-building choices as by markets or technocratic design.