Cocoa cannot make Ivorian life as sweet as it used to be

19 February 2012 - 02:31 By Greg Mills
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HEROES' WELCOME: Fans of Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba cheer him in Abidjan on the team's return from the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in Gabon Picture: THIERRY GOUEGNON/REUTERS
HEROES' WELCOME: Fans of Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba cheer him in Abidjan on the team's return from the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in Gabon Picture: THIERRY GOUEGNON/REUTERS

IVORY Coast's challenge is best summed up by the recent Africa Cup of Nations final.

"Half the country was supporting the team," said an Ivorian business leader.

"The other half refused to as they felt it could benefit [President Alassane] Ouattara. And there were those in the stadium in Libreville shouting not for the team but 'Let Gbagbo go'," he said. It was a reference to the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, now facing charges of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

At first glance, Ivory Coast seems to have everything much of Africa lacks. Skyscrapers and outwardly classy hotels perch in Abidjan above a beautiful lagoon.

The political capital, Yamoussoukro, was built in the style of Canberra or Brasilia and includes a near-replica of Rome's St Peter's Basilica, built at a cost of $400-million in the 1980s. The church mouse, it seems, had been quite prosperous.

For 20 years after independence in 1960, the country maintained an economic growth rate of more than 10% a year. The growth of GDP per capita averaged more than 80% in the 1960s and an extraordinary 360% the next decade. The focus on farming meant the benefits were comparatively widespread and included smallholders. Literacy doubled to 60% during this period and virtually every town had roads and electricity. Not for nothing was Abidjan labelled the "Paris of West Africa", a cosmopolitan hub of commerce, people and nightlife.

The collapse was sudden. A decline in the price of cocoa, coupled with the burden of excessive state spending, resulted in GDP per capita falling from $1300 in 1970 to $700 by 1992. It tumbled further with the political chaos that followed the death in 1993 of independence icon Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

His hand-picked successor, Henri Konan Béfié, was forced out late in 1999 through a military coup led by General Robert Guei. A presidential election, marked by violence, followed in October 2000 and put Gbagbo in power. However, Ouattara had been disqualified from running because of his alleged Burkinabé nationality, questions over which were hitherto unprecedented in a country with 60 constituent ethnic groups. Violent protests culminated in a September 2002 armed uprising: troops mutinied, launching attacks in several cities, forcing France to deploy troops to stop the rebel advance.

When Guei was killed, some say assassinated, Ouattara took refuge in the French embassy and Gbagbo returned home to negotiate an accord resulting in that African speciality when no one can admit defeat - a government of national unity. Amid ongoing violence Gbagbo's mandate as president, which would expire on October 30 2005, was extended and elections were only held in November 2010.

With both Gbagbo and Ouattara claiming fraud and victory - and both staging inaugurations - the UN recognised Ouattara as the victor based on the regional position. This led to a further crisis and civil war as Ouattara's forces seized control of most of the country. Gbagbo was finally removed from his hideout in Abidjan in April 2011.

In the absence of economic growth and without any great ideological differences, it was too easy for the political rivals to play to the politics of identity. A little less than half of the citizens, as the football showed, regard the Christian, southern Gbagbo as their man; the others want the Muslim northerner, Ouattara. These crude stereotypes are perpetuated by the man of choice of Ivory Coast's international partners - opponents portray Ouattara as Paris's guy.

Ironically, the hard times beckoned at the very moment France, the much-maligned colonial power, cut back on its African commitments.

Can Ouattara finally turn things around? The US-educated president has the personal tools. But the economy has not just to be recovered but restructured. There is little point in returning to the point where a precipitous decline began.

Ouattara will thus have to lead a diversification strategy away from "an old scheme based on planting and exporting cocoa to one that we can support our expanding population on", said Jean Louis Billion, one of Ivory Coast's most successful businessmen. The population has increased fivefold in 50 years to more than 20million today and it is little wonder that Abidjan is now considered more violent than Nigeria's Lagos.

Whereas economics only compounded the country's political troubles since the 1980s, the economic challenge now is profoundly political.

It requires dealing with issues of governance, openness to outsiders, freeing up and achieving clarity on land title, cementing democracy through institutions, and ensuring reconciliation rather than violent retribution. It also means dealing with corruption, without which "officials not only believe they can steal what they want and get away with it, but there is little incentive to leave power", according to a businessman.

More than anything, the political leadership will have to shake the recent habit of highlighting and playing to differences among the population. They will have to take a leaf out of Houphouet-Boigny's book and instead play the national game. That is sound advice beyond Ivory Coast's borders, too.

Mills has been in the Ivory Coast this week

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