Our World

Cote d' Ivoire

Instead of doing a blog on a news article I decided to take a look at some of the interesting facts about a country in our current area of study. The country that I chose was the Cote d'Ivoire. This country lies on the western side of Africa and shares borders with Liberia, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea, as well as the Atlantic Ocean. It established it's independence from France in 1960 but is still in close relationship with the country. This becomes evident when one looks at the national language which is French. Since its independence it has had multiple violent breakouts including an overthrown government in 1999 and a rebel group controlling much of the northern part of the country. Currently a peace agreement has been reached yet many loose ends are still to be decided and thousands of French and West African troops are in the country to maintain the peace.
Economically Cote d'Ivoire is better off than many of its African neighbors. It is mainly an agricultural economy depending strongly on the trade of items such as cocoa, coffee, and palm oil. Due to the economies dependency on these items it can be vulnerable to price changes in its exports, as well has harm to its crops from weather.
The Cote d’Ivoire suffers from many of the same problems plaguing the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Most notable of these is the HIV/AIDS crisis. With a population of 17,654,843 the country sees an estimated 47,000 deaths per year from the disease. This is a very high number especially compared to countries with roughly the same population for example Sri Lanka has less than 200 deaths a year. Another problem facing this country is deforestation. Cote d’Ivoire once boasted the largest forest in western Africa but now the woodland has been heavily logged in the interest of making money.
Overall I believe that The Cote d'Ivoire is a developing country that holds a lot of promise. With its government beginning to finally stabilize hopefully the economy will see a boost in profit . Also as the country slowly transfers from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy it will become less vulnerable to price changes and things of that nature.

posted by Anonymous @ 10/24/2006 04:00:00 PM