Burkina Faso’s junta on Wednesday 25 January 2023 signed decrees fixing the financial benefits granted to each civilian auxiliary of the army.The Burkinabe who have committed themselves alongside the army in the war against jihadist groups will be well paid. 

Each Volunteer for the Defence of the Homeland (VDP) will receive a monthly operating bonus of 60,000 CFA francs for the duration of his contract, which is 12 months, renewable, according to an order signed by the Ministers of Finance, Aboubacar Nacanabo and Defence, Colonel Major Kassoum Coulibaly.

The army auxiliaries will also receive an operation bonus, a daily food bonus, health care, financial allowances for permanent disability, burial expenses, financial assistance to beneficiaries, and support for the functioning of the communal group of VDP.

A daily food allowance of 1,500 CFA francs is also paid to each volunteer during training and during interventions with the defence and security forces.

Also, from training to the end of the one-year contract, a healthcare allowance, estimated at CFAF 2,000, is granted monthly to each VDP. 

In the event of incapacity due to an injury on the frontline, the VDP receives 30,000 CFA francs per month for five years, non-renewable.

 In the event of death, the state grants the family of the deceased 100,000 CFA francs in burial expenses. 

“The rightful claimants of the volunteer who died in the exercise of his or her mission benefit from financial assistance in the amount of 1,000,000 CFA francs in a single payment,” the joint decree stated.

 The government has also decided to take charge of communal VDPs. 

Each group of 150 combatants receives 200,000 CFA francs per month, compared to 300,000 CFA francs for the group with more than 150 auxiliaries.

 Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power last September, bases his counter-terrorism strategy on the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland. 

He has recruited more than 50,000 by November 2022.

 A Patriotic Support Fund of nearly CFAF 100 billion has been set up to finance the VDP and their equipment. 

More than CFAF 370 million had been collected for this purpose by 25 January 2023.

 The country has been the scene of two coups in eight months and is more than 40 percent occupied by armed jihadist groups whose excesses have cost the lives of several thousand people and led to the displacement of nearly two million civilians, including children and women.