This paper is proposed as part of the session: what added value/contribution of African experiences and perspective to resilience thinking. Over the last ten years, resilience scholars have adopted a more nuanced view on the desirability of resilience, notably via the use of a new terminology ?that of transformability. The term of resilience itself, however, has kept a positive connotation. Enhancing the resilience of socioecological systems is, for example, often presented as a development objective in itself, notably in the African context. It is indeed framed as a solution to current social and environmental challenges through the means of coping with, or adapting to, changes. This paper critically engages with the concept of resilience as it is being framed as a new environmentally-aware development panacea. We discuss the concept in relation to human organizations - a key component of any socio-ecological system- in the Burkinabe water sector. We draw from a participatory research project to highlight that the Burkinabe water bureaucracy has proved exceptionally resilient in a context of policy and environmental change. We speak of resilience, and not inertia as bureaucracies are often depicted, because civil servants have played an active role in shaping changes while keeping their decision making ethos and values. Here, the resilience of the water administration has come hand-in-hand with control over water management decision making and the non-emergence of water citizenship. This has happened even though promoted policy models such as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) highlight the importance of participation and adaptive management. These findings highlight the need to critically examine the notion and usages of the term resilience when discussed in relation to the social dimension of socio-ecological systems. Notably, there might be trade-offs between institutional resilience and democratization. (Texte integral)