Ouagadougou: Researchers launched a project called 'FASO LAAFI' on Friday at Joseph KI ZERBO University in Ouagadougou, aiming to develop and propose a security governance model adapted to the local context.

According to Burkina Information Agency, the "FASO LAAFI" project is funded by the Belgian Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES) and implemented by researchers from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and the Joseph Ki Zerbo University, for a period of 5 years.

The project seeks to provide a practical and concerted perspective on the fight against insecurity by initiating a process of co-construction of actions that reconcile and combine local security initiatives with public policies on securing the territory, the initiators indicated. They emphasized the project's challenge to contribute, through an educational or pedagogical approach to collective action, to the mobilization of actors around contemporary security issues and their sustainability in a changing society.

In its intervention logic, the project is based on the need for multi-stakeholder consultation and collective analysis at the central and local levels, bringing together teacher-researchers and security stakeholders (including local security initiatives), the media, populations, and development partners, they added. The project aims to improve capacities and skills in the co-construction of a territorialized mode of security governance and proposes mechanisms to promote the permanence of results through the engagement of local and central stakeholders and the media.

It also aims to contribute to strengthening the capacities and collective analysis of stakeholders in national security policies to deploy territorial and participatory approaches to security issues. The beneficiaries include, among others, researchers, students from Burkinabe universities, the state, local authorities, and the populations of the targeted areas.

During this project, productions will be made including 3 doctoral theses, 6 internship dissertations, 2 central workshops, 4 regional collection and dissemination workshops, and an international symposium. The representative of the President of the Joseph ki Zerbo University, Gabin Korb©ogo, expressed that the FASO LAAFI project will contribute to producing relevant knowledge from fieldwork conducted by a multidisciplinary team.

Korb©ogo stated, "We have high expectations and are confident that the project will generate new and compelling knowledge that will advance the state of knowledge on the issue of security governance." He further explained that this project will provide proposals that can inform public policies regarding security governance, highlighting its scientific relevance and societal utility.