...Institutional and economic profile Flexibility and performance profile The COVID-19 pandemic, which comes against a backdrop of heightened insecurity in the Sahel region, will plunge Burkina Faso's economy into a recession in 2020, despite a steep increase in the price of gold, the country's main export. + The COVID-19 pandemic will weigh considerably on economic performance, though surging gold prices will help limit the recession to a 2% real GDP contraction. + After the November 2020 elections, we expect the government's national development program will continue to include large public investments in energy and transportation infrastructures, which will help alleviate development bottlenecks over the medium term and nudge economic growth back to its robust pre-pandemic trend in 2021-2023. + Heightened security risks in the "three-borders" Sahel area will continue to weigh on public finances and generate political instability in the most affected regions. The pandemic will cause Burkina...
