It was, at the time of the “Revolution” then the “Rectification”, and beyond, on the African and international scene, one of the most elegant expressions of the economic competence of the former Upper Volta which it had been a minister at less than 30 years old. Far from the political hubbub of the “revolutionary” years led by Thomas Sankara and Blaise Compaoré, it had made it possible to give the “Land of Upright Men” a positive vision.
We met in Geneva, at the Palais des Nations, in 1991, when he was assistant administrator of the UNDP and regional director for Africa. I was 10 years + 1 day younger than Pierre-Claver Damiba who was then a major personality, not only in Burkina Faso but also in Africa.
He knew how to listen, lead and decide, with efficiency and discretion. He had, with his interlocutors, an astonishing know-how always imbued with the extreme cordiality of those who have already had a long career and have nothing to prove.
He died on Wednesday May 1, 2024 in Ouagadougou.
Banker-financier training
Pierre-Claver Damiba was born on January 13, 1937 in Koupéla, in the province of Kouritenga, in east-central Burkina Faso. It owes its first name to a 16th century Spanish Jesuit priest (Pierre Claver) who was totally involved in supporting African slaves who landed on the coasts of what is now Colombia. Hence the Catholic education of Pierre-Claver Damiba (who retained a passion for Gregorian music).
His father, Emile, was secretary to the head of the province; his mother was born Marguerite Nikiéma. Pierre-Claver Damiba will begin his studies at the Petit Séminaire de Pabré before joining the diocesan college of Sacré-Coeur in Ablon-sur-Seine, in the Val-de-Marne department. He will therefore do most of his studies in France, notably at the Paris Faculty of Law where he will obtain a degree in economics before joining the Center for Economic and Banking Studies and Training (Céféb) of the Caisse Central Economic Cooperation (CCCE today AFD/French Development Agency). He graduated at the top of his class in 1962 in the Planning, Banking and Development Projects section. On June 29, 1963, he married Kadidia Christel Sall (died October 15, 2014) who gave him six children.
Minister of Lamizana during the first military regime
He then returned to Upper Volta where, administrator of financial services, he was appointed director of Planning (1962) and, in addition, responsible for industrial relations (from 1965). On January 8, 1966, following the seizure of power by Lieutenant-Colonel Aboubakar Sangoulé Lamizana, Pierre-Claver Damiba entered the government. He will be number five with the Development and Tourism portfolio. On April 6, 1967, he became Minister of Planning and Public Works.
He left the government on February 22, 1971 following the appointment of Kango Gérard Ouédraogo to the post of Prime Minister (newly created) of the Second Republic (Lamizana still being President of the Republic, President of the Council of Ministers, but with the rank division general).
At the same time, he was governor of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/Bird (1963-1974), administrator of the Central Bank of West African States/BCEAO (1964-1974), president of Air Volta of which he was the creator (1967-1974), vice-president of the Abidjan-Niger/Ran railway authority (1967-1974).
Ouaga, Lomé, Washington then New York
In 1974, Pierre-Claver Damiba was appointed general director of the Caisse nationale des Dépôts et des Investissements. It was the start of a long career in banking and international financial institutions.
In 1975, he became the first executive president of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), headquartered in Lomé. In 1981, he joined the World Bank as special advisor to the International Finance Corporation (IFC). On September 19, 1983 (less than a month after the conquest of power by Thomas Sankara’s National Council of the Revolution/CNR), he left Washington for New York and the headquarters of the United Nations. He is Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Africa at the Regional Bureau for Africa of the United Nations Development Program, UNDP.
For Africa, the hopes of the 1970s had been disappointed. Africa entered the last twenty years of the 20th century more bloodless than ever. UNDP will therefore set up, in December 1984, the United Nations Office of Emergency Operations in Africa. The Program will increase its support in the areas of food production, the establishment of emergency water supplies, logistical support for the storage and distribution of food and the settlement of refugees.
Damiba intends not to insult the future by simply managing the immediate. More and more African countries are forced to sign structural adjustment programs that are often poorly received by the populations. UNDP provides them with assistance in private sector promotion operations. This is how in 1986 the service for the promotion and development of investments in Africa (APDF) was created, of which Damiba chaired the advisory board. Damiba will also bear the weight of the debt and the cash flow difficulties of African countries. He will organize, in Geneva, within the framework of the United Nations at the Palais des Nations, the “round table conferences”.
Facilitator of “round table conferences”
This involves bringing together, at the same time and in the same place, representatives of bilateral and multilateral agencies to listen to a country’s financial grievances and find solutions together. It was in September 1990, during the Paris Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that it was decided to establish “round table conferences”.
Pierre-Claver Damiba will tackle it, making Geneva his second stronghold. He knows how to “turn the machine” of UNDP and create the best contact between applicants and donors. Travel, contacts, study of files, meetings with UNDP staff… Early in the morning until late in the evening, he is active without seeming to be, with his usual kindness and his total availability, accessible to all, always ready to organize a privileged contact to be able to discuss a specific problem.
Damiba will organize dozens of “round table conferences” which, each time, will bring together the elite of the international financial world under his presidency.
In 1991, I participated in two of these conferences, one devoted to the CAR, the other to Burkina Faso. Ouagadougou was implementing a new development strategy which was also the result of a major political evolution. This means that the organization of the “conference” had not been simple. “It took debates, clarifications on the economic and financial level,” Damiba will tell me. Above all, it was necessary to clarify the democratic process in progress, to say whether it is a real development and not a simple veneer. Obviously, we realized here that Burkina Faso is committed to leaving an exceptional political regime to move towards a regime of law. This was very clearly perceived by the donors.” It is true that the Burkinabè delegates present held their own: Minister of State Roch Marc Christian Kaboré led the delegation in which Bintou Sanogoh and Frédéric-Assomption Korsaga also participated (Sanogoh would lose the finance portfolio to Korsaga a few weeks later late) ; they were accompanied by several directors of the central administration.
Expert in mobilizing international financing
Pierre-Claver Damiba will become a good connoisseur of the methods to put in place to mobilize international financing. Subsequently, having left the UNDP, he put his experience at the service of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) of which he was appointed executive secretary in 1993. He held this position for several years (after having failed to launch a political career). In November 1999, he returned to Burkina Faso definitively.
He was then a sixty-year-old who continued to be passionate about the issues of economic development. In particular, he criticized an “inadequate conception of growth”; he spoke of “accounting and non-economic growth which creates neither jobs nor added value”. He called for a “real revolution” in the education system. He also underlined the need for a dose of protectionism, an “educational protectionism” he said. Environmental issues were not foreign to him. It took into account “young people who refuse poor living conditions in the bush and frequently migrate to the cities” (L’Economiste du Faso, Monday June 6, 2016). He denounced the constraints weighing on SMEs due to the reluctance of banks (“financial counters”, he said, nothing more).
Ra-Sablga Seydou Ouédraogo, of the FREE Afrik Institute, in the tribute he paid to Pierre-Claver Damiba (lefaso.net of Thursday May 2, 2024), revealed the existence of one more document of 1,000 pages written by Damiba. It is to be hoped that this can be made available as soon as possible. I always regret that the files of my friend Pascal Zagré were not the subject of a census and grouping immediately after his sudden death in Boston. He has an avenue in his name in Ouaga 2000; it would have been preferable if his work as an economist and minister had been promoted and disseminated. In order, in particular, to be read and studied by all those who claim to govern Burkina Faso.
Jean-Pierre Bejot
The Malassis farm (France)
May 4, 2024
