CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE _____________________________________________________________________ 72% in 2008 as a result of free primary education and free education during the first secondary-school cycle. Efforts with regard to education must be continued and intensified, since the illiteracy rate is still very high. However, the objective of education for all is still far from being achieved. 213. The PNDS, which provides for the development of health facilities and for the implementation of the strategic framework for combating HIV/AIDS, has led to increased enjoyment of the right to health. However, the plan still lacks overall effectiveness owing to the lack of a health infrastructure and to the persistence of certain endemic diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and meningitis. Access to care and structures must be improved greatly for many Burkinabe, especially in rural areas. 214. The food situation with regard to the population has improved owing to the development of agriculture (including livestock farming) through an increase in the number of dams and water reservoirs, the exploitation of low lands, as well as the development of a technique for regulating rainfall (Operation Saaga). However, such improvement does not yet benefit all of the population. Moreover, changing weather patterns sometimes adversely affect the efforts being made to improve the food situation. Despite the improvements made, malnutrition rates remain high, particularly among children. 215. Trade union freedoms are best exercised through the development of social dialogue. Yet, during their meeting with the CRM, trade unionists deplored the excessive rigour with which the right to strike and demonstrate was handled, sometimes making such actions risky. 216. Ultimately, it is not enough to protect human rights by adopting legal texts. Such rights must also be known. However, everyone knows that human rights are ignored by the majority of Burkina Faso people for several reasons, such as the illiteracy of a large part of the population, the complexity of the language in which the rights are drafted, and the inaccessibility of justice for the majority of citizens. 217. Ignorance of these rights constitutes an obstacle to the rule of law and democracy, in that such ignorance promotes infringement of the rights (e.g. through the abuse of power), privatisation of justice and poor development of a sense of citizenship. Similarly, it is not enough to grant rights to citizens in the hope that they will be able to enjoy them. A number of conditions must be met. People must be able to feed themselves, learn, obtain health care, obtain housing, and so on; in other words, they must be able to live decently. The first of the MDGs is the eradication of poverty and hunger. Now, the problem in this regard is that economic, social and cultural rights have been designed as targets rather than as compulsory rights such as civil and political rights. This, then, is one of the shortcomings of the Burkina Faso legislation regarding the protection and promotion of human rights. The authorities seem to favour the universality of rights over their indivisibility. 113