Catholic Relief Services agriculture programs use a variety of approaches to assist farmers to address food insecurity. These programs strive to increase yield, process and preserve harvest, and market products. Through vouchers, technical assistance and land management, CRS helps farmers improve techniques with newer, more advanced tools and seeds on well-managed land. Using demonstrations of proper techniques and other forms of technical assistance, the farmers harvesting and women processing the harvest are better able to preserve the fruits of their labor. Finally, by purchasing food aid and take-home rations locally, CRS demonstrated through recent pilot programs how it can provide a market for local producers to sell their products and promote the formation of new markets to assist people in the development of their own livelihoods thus improving local demand.

Catholic Relief Services considers access to and quality of education, particularly for the most poor and vulnerable, two inseparable dimensions of achieving the Millennium Development Goal of attaining education for all. To that effect, CRS is working to increase enrollment, attendance and retention of students.

Currently CRS has programs that emphasize five main approaches to achieving those goals. They supply school canteens through the importation of food from the United States so that they can provide daily hot meals through parents' associations. They also provide take-home rations to girls with attendance rates of at least 90 percent. They help improve the state of nutrition and hygiene in schools by providing vitamins and supplements, de-worming drugs and training in good hygiene practices. CRS promotes early childhood education and the freeing of young girls from their daily chores through the construction and support of Bisongos, the local pre-schools. Finally, CRS supports the construction of the infrastructure of schools that are favorable for the education of girls.

In response to damaging floods in 2010, Catholic Relief Services has provided emergency relief to approximately 13,500 victims in the disaster zone to meet their short and medium term needs. Using food and non-food vouchers, CRS aided people in sustaining their households until the next harvest in October 2011. Similarly, CRS distributed 500 vouchers for small ruminants so that people who lost their animals during the flood could recoup their productive assets. Finally, CRS helped people rebuild their houses by providing construction materials and vouchers for construction labor including offering expertise in constructing houses to mitigate damage from such disasters.

Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC), Catholic Relief Services' method of extending savings and credit services to vulnerable populations, is incorporated into nearly all CRS programming in Burkina Faso. Through SILC, communities form self-governed groups supported through their own savings and lending scheme. These communities provide the financial services that are otherwise unavailable or too costly, especially for rural farming communities. Initially, CRS support helps guide the group in developing strong practices and rules, but the groups often last for years on their own after CRS programs have ended.

Catholic Relief Services has been promoting food security in this drought and flood stricken country for decades in a multidimensional way, targeting three aspects: availability, access and usage. To improve the availability, agricultural programs support farmers to increase their outputs and strengthen the markets in which they sell their produce. Livelihood projects that increase people's savings, credit and income improve access through Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC). Education programs aim to improve access and usage by providing food in the form of dry rations and hot meals and introducing vitamin supplementation, de-worming medicine, and hygiene and sanitation trainings.