Ivory

In Côte d'Ivoire, the BJKD Foundation (Bénédicte Janine Kacou Diagou) has just arranged the 3rd edition of its Young Entrepreneurship Award. The winners were announced during a ceremony held in Abidjan on 19 September. In the choice of projects, the BJKD award emphasizes gender parity. And the podium for the 2020 vintage was dominated by women.…

In addition to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is strongly affecting the world economy and the Ivorian economy, there is a risk of socio-political unrest associated with the October 31 presidential election. Many observers fear that the country's economy will pick up after good years of growth and development. Following the 2010-2011 election crisis, Côte d'Ivoire's GDP had lost 4 points. In late…

Ivory Coast Constitutional Court ruled last week that only four out of 44 presidential hopefuls would be allowed to run in the country's presidential election. Because they face criminal convictions, former President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, both giants of Ivorian politics, were among those prevented from running. Most of the others whose candidates were deemed invalid had failed to garner sufficient public support - a new electoral reform required candidates to request signatures from at…

Ivory Coast's head of state, Alassane Ouattara, has blown up two rivals' attempt to challenge next month's presidential election as "provocation", saying one of them is behind bars. In an interview published Thursday by the French magazine Paris Match, the 78-year-old sitting fired a verbal breadth against former President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro. Both men live outside the country, but retain strong support at home, in a country still scarred by a post-election conflict that claimed more…