Two systems, and the one Burkina Faso uses
There are two ways a country can be satisfied that a foreign signature is real. One is the apostille: a single slip, honoured by every state inside a shared treaty. The other is the older chain, where the receiving state has its own officer look at the file before it counts. Burkina Faso works to the second.
Where Burkina Faso stands on the Convention
Burkina Faso has not joined the Hague Apostille Convention. Because of that, a British paper heading for Ouagadougou or Bobo-Dioulasso requires embassy legalisation whatever else is already on it. Britain signed the treaty long ago, which is why the slip is issued here at all, but a treaty only shortens a journey when both ends have signed.
The Cardiff to Ouagadougou route in practice
The British half is plain and impersonal. One office covers the whole country, it acts through the post, and no desk in Wales does this work. It will mark a register copy, a court copy, or a paper signed by someone whose signature it already holds, and it returns the file the way it came.
The second half is where an apostille from United Kingdom to Burkina Faso parts company with a route into Europe. A consular officer reads the file itself, logs it, and keeps a rhythm of their own. Papers tied to a contract start or a school term should leave Cardiff with weeks in hand.
French, and the papers that actually travel
Public business in Burkina Faso is conducted in French. An English paper with two marks on it still lands on a French-speaking desk, so a French rendering usually goes with it. Have the words done once the marks are on. A version made too early describes the paper as it was, not the finished bundle that arrives.
The mix leaving Cardiff reflects who goes there. Gold mining, farming projects and civil engineering dominate, so degrees, safety tickets and employer letters outnumber personal records. A firm opening a local branch sends its company papers. Families move birth and marriage records less often, and those are the ones worth replacing with a certified copy first.