Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire): Country report

On the west coast of Africa, boarded by the Atlantic Ocean and five other countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Guinea, and Liberia), is Ivory Coast. This is indeed the country that I stuck to for a report out of the three countries that I was thinking about: Japan in Asia, Ivory Coast of course, and Hawaii in the North of Pacific Ocean. Being from Burkina Faso myself, I always wanted to go visit Ivory Coast but never had the chance to. All my life I was surrounded by Ivorian friends that were super nice, funny and caring. So let us write a brief story about Ivory Coast.

 

                         

 Tropical along the coast and semiarid in far North, Ivory Coast (or Cote d’Ivoire for French speakers) encounters three seasons in a year: warm and dry from November to March, hot and dry from March to May, hot and wet from June to October. It expands on a total area of 322,463 square kilometers (Km²) (1). 

The population is about 21,952,093 people (July 2012 estimations). The inhabitants of Ivory Coast are called “Ivoirians”. It is a French speaking country due to the colonization, but has its own local languages from different ethnic groups. The two most popular cities in Ivory Coast are the capital of course, which is Yamoussoukro, and Abidjan on the coast which remains the commercial and administrative center, and is probably more popular. “Around 1960 the Ivory Coast could hardly be described as a society in the normally accepted sense of the word. The territory carved out by French colonizers in West Africa approximately seventy years earlier contained widely disparate societies interacting with one another to varying degrees and in different ways”(2). Close ties to France since independence in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment made Ivory Coast one of the most prosperous of the West African states but did not protect it from political turmoil.

Cote d'Ivoire is heavily dependent on agriculture and related activities, which engage roughly 68% of the population. Cote d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans and a significant producer and exporter of coffee and palm oil. Consequently, the economy is highly sensitive to fluctuations in international prices for these products, and, to a lesser extent, in climatic conditions. Cocoa, oil, and coffee are the country's top export revenue earners, but the country is also producing gold (1).

One sad thing about Ivory Coast is that instability in the country. There have been civil wars and innocent people have been killed. In December 1999, a military coup - the first ever in Ivory Coast's history - overthrew the government. Junta leader Robert GUEI blatantly rigged elections held in late 2000 and declared himself the winner. Ivorian dissidents and disaffected members of the military launched a failed coup attempt in September 2002. Rebel forces claimed the northern half of the country, and in January 2003 were granted ministerial positions in a unity government under the auspices of the Linas-Marcoussis Peace Accord.

All of those events have made Ivory Coast a place of insecurity, but it does not prevent Ivoirians to still rejoice have fun and play soccer. I am still interested in visiting and will definitely go as soon as I get the chance to.

Work cited

(1)    Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iv.html, October 9^th, 2012.

(2)    Foster P. and Zolberg A., GHANA AND IVORY COAST – PERSPECTIVES ON MODERNIZATION, (The University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 10.