Victoria's Secret and Burkina Faso

I just received the following in an email and thought I'd pass it on. Who knew looking sexy could be beneficial to Burkina Faso!

Hello everyone,

As this year draws to a close I would like to tell everyone about an opportunity to help those who are less fortunate through the simple purchase of special edition organic lingerie from Victoria's Secret. This project is helpful on two levels: not only will the cultivation of organic cotton help our environment, but women-owned farming cooperatives in Burkina Faso will benefit greatly from the sale of their product on the U.S market.

You can view these products by following this shortcut to: http://victoriassecret.com/ and typing "organic" in the search box.

Because the Economic section at U.S. Embassy here in Ouagadougou is involved in commercial activities I had the privilege to follow the progress of this project and to meet many of the people who made this a reality. I am attaching several photos; the first one is me with our Agricultural Attaché and my Commercial Assistant in one of the villages where the cotton is grown and the other photos are the women from one of the producer’s cooperative.

I know that it may be difficult to understand how buying lingerie can help people halfway across the world so let me take a few more minutes of your time to explain why this project means so much to so many people here in Burkina Faso.

Where is Burkina Faso? Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta, in a landlocked country located in the Sahel region of West Africa. In a nation that has few natural resources, the average person earns approximately $430 a year. Eighty percent of the country's 14 million inhabitants rely on subsistence agriculture. In 2007, the UNDP's Human Development Index ranked Burkina Faso second-to-last among the 177 countries it measured.

Why is organic cotton so expensive? To be certified as organic, cotton must be grown in a field that has not been treated with pesticides or chemical fertilizers for a minimum of three years. As the Economic Attaché here in Burkina Faso, I have visited many cotton fields and seen the challenges that these farmers must face; lack of rainfall, poor soil, and countless pests that attack cotton plants in all stages of their growth. Without the use of chemicals, per hectare production rates drop dramatically making it much more expensive to grow organic crops.

Why is organic cotton a women's crop? Work in Africa is sharply divided between men's and women's tasks. Although both men and women grow cotton, only men are allowed to use pesticides; women who want to farm cotton must grow organic cotton.

Why is it so important to help women in sub-Saharan Africa?Development studies have found that targeting the economic well being of women is the quickest way to achieve development goals in poor nations. In many African nations, men are more likely to spend their income on themselves or to obtain another wife, while women spend their money on food, medical care, and education for their children. I have spoken with some of the women who have grown this organic cotton and they say that because of this project, their families now have two and sometimes even three meals a day; their children are healthier and they can afford to send them to school.

How will this project help these women? This project with Limited Brands, the parent company of Victoria's Secret, is a landmark sale which will propel Burkina Faso to the position of top organic cotton producer in West Africa. Because this is also a Fair Trade project, the women who produce this cotton will not only profit from the sale of their crops, part of the money will be reinvested in projects that will help them women improve the economic wellbeing of their families.

I wish everyone a happy holiday season and hope that you will consider supporting this worthwhile project and ask that you pass this email along to people who you think might be interested.

Pamela A. Hamblett

Econ./Comm. Officer

U.S. Embassy
Ouagadougou