Centre Region
Centre Region's Ouagadougou holds 12% of Burkinabè population and half of industrial establishments, coordinating mining nationalization and ECOWAS withdrawal.
Centre Region contains Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital and primate city where 12% of the national population (3.2 million) concentrates on 600 km². This extreme urban primacy—one city holding over half of national industrial establishments—creates metabolic dependence where the capital consumes resources extracted from peripheral regions. Ouagadougou's food processing and textile industries rely on agricultural inputs from cotton and livestock zones; its services sector employs government workers, international organizations, and the formal commercial economy.
The 2022 and 2024 coups that brought Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power reshaped the political landscape radiating from this center. The January 2025 ECOWAS withdrawal, alongside Mali and Niger, signals reorientation toward Russian military partnership and away from French influence. Mining nationalization—five major gold operations transferred to state ownership—reflects resource sovereignty ambitions coordinated from the capital.
Gold now accounts for 17% of GDP despite production declines, with revenues increasingly channeled through Ouagadougou-based institutions. The extreme poverty rate declined to 23.2% in 2024 as agricultural and services growth strengthened, though 2025 projections show vulnerability to security shocks. Whether Ouagadougou can maintain economic function while managing the humanitarian crisis (2 million displaced nationally) tests the capital's absorptive capacity.