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In the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, a coastal country with a northern savannah and forests in the south, rural poverty is most severe and widespread in the northern, western and central-western regions.

In the northern zone, smallholder farmers produce cereal, cotton and livestock, while the forest areas in the south produce export crops such as cocoa. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s leading cocoa producer. Yet poverty is growing in forest areas of the south as a result of the volatility of world prices for coffee and cocoa in recent years.

Côte d’Ivoire is one of the world’s 20 poorest countries. After a period of economic growth in the 1960s driven by coffee and cocoa exports, the country registered a marked decline in growth and an increase in the incidence of poverty in the early 1980s and again in 1999. The income gap widened and the concentration of poverty in rural areas became evident. The civil war that broke out in 2002 disrupted the economic, social and political fabric of the country. Thousands were killed in the conflict and hundreds of thousands of rural people were displaced. The conflict particularly affected poor people in rural areas. From 1985 to 2008 the rural poverty rate rose from 15 to 62 per cent.

Most of the country’s poor people are small-scale farmers. They face problems of market access, low prices for export crops and inadequate basic social services. Education levels among food crop producers are low, and their access to technology is limited. Lack of access to land is a major cause of rural poverty. Small-scale producers of food crops have access to about half of the amount of land available to large-scale producers of export crops. Women have limited or no decision-making power over the allocation of land, and they are dependent on men for access to land. Yet gaining access to land is crucial for women because their livelihoods depend largely on the production of food crops.

Population pressure and environmental degradation have reduced overall access to productive land. Environmental degradation poses a significant threat to the future productivity and wellbeing of rural communities. Unregulated deforestation and intensive farming have led to advancing degradation of the savannah and loss of soil fertility, particularly in the northern regions. The effects of climate change are already evident, especially in the north where crop and livestock farming are being affected by changes in rainfall patterns and soil degradation.

Côte d’Ivoire has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in West Africa. The collapse of public health facilities in the north as a result of years of conflict has made the situation worse. The government has established a ministry to lead the fight against AIDS. A wide range of national and international initiatives in the country focus on HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and testing.

Source: IFAD