Bala Wenceslas Sanou is a geographer at the University of Ouagadougou, where he obtained a master’s degree in 1990 in developing a village forest in the Eastern region. Co-founder of the Impact Research Institute (IRI) in 2020, has 30 years of experience in a dozen African countries and the Netherlands (KIT). He supports local and regional communities in land governance (secure access for women, youth, migrants and indigenous people) for better social cohesion in rural areas in a context of land pressure (mining) and the effects of climate change.