Abstract
It is very difficult to start from scratch a new Astrophysics program in a country with very little or no researchers in the field. In 2007, we began to set-up an Astrophysics program by TWINNING the Universit´e de Ouagadougou with the Universit´e de Montr´eal in Canada, the Universit´e de Provence in France and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Already, courses are given at the undergraduate and Master levels and a teaching Observatory has been built. A 1m research telescope was also moved from the La Silla Observatory in Chile to Burkina Faso and the infrastructure is being built at the moment on mount Djaogari in the north-eastern part of the country. In the meantime, 6 students are doing their PhD in Astrophysics overseas (Canada, France and South Africa) and will become the core of the research group at the Universit´e de Ouagadougou. An engineer is also doing his PhD in Astronomical Instrumentation to help with the maintenance of the equipment on the Research Telescope.
