Ivory Coast: Bittersweet Synphony

IVORY COAST

Bittersweet Symphony

Deemed the continent’s fastest growing economy in 2016 by the International Monetary Fund, and still the world’s largest producer of cocoa, the Ivory Coast is leaps and bounds ahead of many other nations in Africa in terms of economic prowess, development and stability.

It’s an astonishing development for a country that has endured two bloody civil wars since the turn of the millennium – political conflicts fueled by religious divides that left over 3,000 people dead and more than 500,000 displaced, the BBC reported.

But while war has subsided – and the IMF projects economic growth of over 7 percent per annum for the rest of the decade –this West African nation still faces major challenges, Quartz reported.

For one, nearly half of its population still lives in poverty, CNN reported.

Also, investor confidence was severely shaken last year amid a string of mutinies by Ivorian soldiers.

Following an election dispute in 2010 and the ensuing civil war between loyalist and rebel forces, the military became a mixture of the two factions.

That’s led to some heavy friction – and an army with elements prone to rebel against their government.

There were two separate mutinies in 2017, Quartz reported, and mutinous soldiers rang in the New Year by sparking an uprising in the city of Bouake, a rebellion that quickly spread to the nation’s largest city and economic capital, the coastal outpost of Abidjan.

To pacify the unruly soldiers, the government has resorted to payoffs in the form of early pension handouts – much to the ire of normal Ivorians.

They’ve gotten hit from many sides, African Arguments writes.

A global oversupply of cocoa – which accounts for one-fifth of the Ivorian economy – forced the government to slash prices guaranteed to farmers by 36 percent virtually overnight.

Meanwhile, global climate change has some speculating that swaths of Ivory Coast may soon become uninhabitable for cocoa trees. And unemployment is already rampant. So it’s no wonder that the dream of making the dangerous trip to Europe remains at the back of many young Ivorians’ minds, Euractiv reported.

Even so, there are some sweet spots in Ivory Coast.

As Deutsche Welle reported, Ivorians now belonging to the country’s new middle class are seeking to take the cocoa they’ve been harvesting and actually produce high-end chocolate for the domestic market – a luxury product they hope to export to the rest of the world.

Infrastructure projects are on the rise, too, CNN reported – hopeful notes in an otherwise bittersweet symphony.