Evaluation of the implementation of governmental policies and actions to create healthy food environments in Burkina Faso.

Objective: The creation of a healthy food environment is highly dependent on the policies that governments choose to implement. The objective of this study is to compare the level of implementation of current public policies aimed at creating healthy food environments in Burkina Faso with international good practice indicators.

Design: This evaluation was carried out using the Food-EPI tool. The tool has 2 components (policy and infrastructure support), 13 domains and 56 good practice indicators adapted to the Burkina Faso context.

Setting: Burkina Faso.

Participants: Expert evaluators divided into two groups: the group of independent experts from universities, NGOs and civil society, and the group of experts from various government sectors.

Results: Among the 56 indicators, it was assessed the level of implementation as "high" for 6 indicators, "medium" for 24 indicators, "low" for 22 indicators and "very low" for 4 indicators. High implementation level indicators include strong and visible political support, targets on exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding, strong and visible political support for actions to combat all forms of malnutrition, monitoring of exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding indicators, monitoring of promotion and growth surveillance programs and coordination mechanism (national, state and local government). The indicators on menu labelling, reducing taxes on healthy foods, increasing taxes on unhealthy foods and dietary guidelines are the indicators with a "very low" level of implementation in Burkina Faso.

Conclusions: The general results showed that there is a clear need for further improvements in policy and infrastructure support to promote healthy food environments.