Average Height in Burkina Faso (Men & Women)

How tall are people in Burkina Faso?

The site's figures for Burkina Faso come from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), which estimates that people born there in 1996 average 169.3 cm (5′6.5″) for men and 160.2 cm (5′3″) for women. In the site's table of 200 countries and territories, Burkinabè men rank 119th and Burkinabè women 83rd.

As in neighboring Mali and Niger, the story behind those numbers has two parts: steady gains for most of the twentieth century, followed by a small decline among people born after the 1950s and 1970s. Unlike some neighbors, though, Burkina Faso now has strong evidence that the childhood conditions behind that decline have been improving. Its national surveys show child stunting falling by about a third in a decade.

This article covers the estimates, the long-term trend, the national survey data on women and children, and how Burkina Faso compares with the region.

How the estimates work

NCD-RisC's 2016 study in eLife pooled 1,472 population-based studies with measured height for more than 18.6 million people born between 1896 and 1996. Only measured heights were used. The estimates describe birth cohorts, people born in a given year, at about age 18. Those born in 1996 came of age in 2014.

A Bayesian hierarchical model drew on each country's own surveys and, where data were thinner, on other years and other countries in the same region. Uncertainty is larger for countries with limited data, so differences of a centimeter or so between Burkina Faso and its neighbors aren't meaningful on their own.

A century of change

Men gained 8.0 cm between the 1896 and 1976 cohorts, and women gained 6.3 cm between 1896 and 1956. After those peaks, both declined by just over 2 cm: men by 2.2 cm to the 1996 cohort and women by 2.3 cm. Over the full century, men are 5.8 cm taller and women 4.0 cm taller, less than the 8 to 9 cm global gain reported by Our World in Data.

Burkinabè women were relatively tall from the start. At 156.2 cm, women born in 1896 were taller than women of the same cohort in the United Kingdom (153.4 cm) according to the site data, and close to the American average for that cohort (158.5 cm).

Why the trend reversed

The NCD-RisC paper doesn't analyze Burkina Faso individually, but it describes the pattern Burkina Faso follows. In many sub-Saharan African countries, adult height decreased or stagnated for cohorts born after the early 1960s. The authors point to earlier research showing that child stunting in sub-Saharan Africa rose until the mid-1990s, and suggest that childhood adversity carried forward into adult height.

They also discuss why Africa began with an advantage over Asia, possibly a more diverse diet helped by lower population density, and why that advantage may have eroded: rising population combined with worsening economic conditions during structural adjustment. Our World in Data explains the underlying principle. Height differences within a population are largely genetic, but changes between generations mainly reflect nutrition and health in childhood.

What national surveys show

Burkina Faso's national statistics institute, the INSD, runs the Demographic and Health Survey with technical support from the DHS Program. The fifth round, EDSBF-V, was carried out between July 30 and November 30, 2021. Earlier rounds include the 2010 survey, which was combined with UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey.

Children: a large fall in stunting

Stunting, defined as height for age more than two standard deviations below the WHO growth standard, is the child-growth measure most closely linked to adult height. The surveys show a clear improvement:

• In 2010, about 35% of children under five were stunted, 20% moderately and 15% severely. The report classified that level as high.
• In 2021, 23% were stunted. The same survey found 11% wasted, 18% underweight and 2% overweight.

The World Bank's series of stunting estimates shows the longer trend:

Stunting peaked around 1999, which matches the NCD-RisC paper's description of rising child stunting across the region into the 1990s. Since then the share has roughly halved. Children born in the 2010s are therefore growing up in better nutritional conditions than the cohorts born in the 1980s and 1990s, which suggests the decline in adult height could stop or reverse for them, though no adult estimate yet covers those generations.

Who is most affected

The 2021 survey breaks stunting down by several characteristics:

The Sahel and Est regions stand out: severe stunting affected 15% of children in the Sahel region and 11% in the Est. The report also notes that children whose mothers were thin were more likely to be stunted, and those whose mothers were overweight or obese less likely.

Growth monitoring in clinics

Measuring children regularly is how health workers spot growth problems early, and the 2021 survey asked how often that happens. In the three months before the survey, a health provider had weighed 39% of children under five, measured the height of 38% and measured the mid-upper arm circumference of 35%. Only 31% had all three measurements, and 28% also had the check for oedema that completes a full growth assessment.

Monitoring fell steeply with age, from 67% of babies aged 6 to 11 months to 12% of children aged 48 to 59 months. It also varied by region, from 46% in the Nord and 41% in the Cascades down to 25% in the Centre-Nord. Children of mothers with no schooling, and those in the poorest households, were slightly less likely to be monitored.

How the survey measures height

The 2021 report describes its anthropometry protocol. Weight was measured on SECA 878U digital scales and height or length on a ShorrBoard measuring board. Children under 24 months were measured lying down, giving their length, while older children and women were measured standing. Using the same equipment and positions as other Demographic and Health Surveys makes Burkina Faso's figures comparable with surveys in neighboring countries.

Women: very little short stature

The 2021 survey measured women's height and weight. Only 0.2% of women aged 20 to 49 were shorter than 145 cm, the threshold the survey uses for critically short stature, with 0.1% in towns and 0.3% in rural areas. In 2010, the comparable figure was 0.6%.

Women's weight has shifted more than their height. In 2021, 65% of women aged 20 to 49 had a normal body mass index, 10% were thin (3% moderately or severely), and 25.3% were overweight or obese, including 7.3% who were obese. The urban–rural contrast was large: 41.8% of urban women were overweight or obese, against 17.3% of rural women.

Burkina Faso and its neighbors

NCD-RisC estimates for Burkina Faso and the countries around it (1996 birth cohort):

Burkina Faso is second only to Mali among its neighbors for both men and women. Burkinabè women are notably tall for the region: 2.3 cm taller than Ghanaian women and 4 cm taller than women in Benin.

The neighbors also show the regional decline. Côte d'Ivoire's men have lost 3.4 cm since the 1976 cohort, Ghana's 1.7 cm, and Mali's 2.2 cm. Burkina Faso's 2.2 cm decline for men is typical.

Two neighbors, nearly identical curves

Burkina Faso and Mali share a long border and, in the NCD-RisC data, remarkably similar height histories:

Malian men have been about 1.6 to 1.8 cm taller than Burkinabè men in every cohort, while the women of the two countries have been within 0.3 cm of each other for a century. Both countries peaked with the same cohorts and declined by the same amount afterwards, about 2.2 cm for men. Child stunting has also fallen in both, from over 40% around 2000 to between a fifth and a quarter of children in recent surveys.

The narrow gap between men and women

Burkinabè men born in 1996 are only 9.1 cm taller than Burkinabè women. That's one of the smaller gaps in the world, the 19th smallest of the 200 countries and territories in the site data. For comparison, the global gap for the same cohort is about 12 cm, using Our World in Data's averages of 171 cm and 159 cm. The gap was 7.3 cm in the 1896 cohort and has stayed between 7 and 10 cm throughout the century.

Our World in Data notes that men are taller than women in every country, but the size of the difference varies widely and can change over time. The data don't establish why it's small in Burkina Faso, and several neighbors show similar patterns: Mali's gap is 10.6 cm and Niger's 9.4 cm.

Using these figures

An average Burkinabè man born in 1996 is 169.3 cm, about 5′6.5″, and an average woman 160.2 cm, about 5′3″. To see how an individual height compares, use the height percentile calculator, or convert with the cm to feet page for 160 cm. Every country's averages are on the average height hub.

Burkina Faso's height record follows the familiar West African arc: early gains, a peak for people born in the mid-twentieth century, and a modest decline after that. What sets it apart is the strength of the recent child data. With stunting down from about 41% around 1999 to about 21% in 2021, the generations now growing up have a much better chance of reaching their full height than those born in the 1980s and 1990s.