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The Ivory Coast Economic ‘Miracle’: What Benefits for Peasant Farmers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

The pattern of rapid economic growth in the Ivory Coast since the early 1950s has been frequently described with some hyperbole, by foreign experts and Ivorian politicians, as an economic ‘miracle’. While most African nations, with the exception of the oil-exporters, have taken a rough ride on the economic roller-coaster during the past two decades, and while some like Guinea, Ghana, and Uganda, have followed a steadily downward trajectory, the economic fortunes of the Ivory Coast have improved consistently.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

page 25 note 1 World Bank, World Development Report, 1981 (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 136.Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 See, for example, Levi, John, ‘African Agriculture Misunderstood: policy in Sierra Leone’, in Food Research Institute Studies (Stanford), XIII, 3, 1974, pp. 239–62;Google Scholar and Helleiner, Gerald, ‘The Fiscal Role of Marketing Boards in Nigerian Economic Development, 1947–64’, in Economic Journal (London), 74, 3, 1964, pp. 583610.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 For a related view, see Lee, Eddy, ‘Export-Led Development: the Ivory Coast’, in Development and Change (The Hague), II, 1980, pp. 607–42.Google Scholar

page 27 note 2 By 1980, major borrowing by the Government against the 1976–8 boom in commodity exports had raised the Ivory Coast's foreign debt to $4,125,000 million. The ratio of debt service to export earnings was 23.6 per cent, up sharply from 13.0 per cent in 1978.

page 27 note 3 World Development Report, 1981, pp. 138 and 148.

page 28 note 1 Sources: for 1960–75, The World Bank, Ivory Coast: the challenge of success (Washington, D.C., 1978), Tables SA3, 4, and 16; for 1976–9,Google ScholarLa Côte d'Ivoire en chiffres, 1980–81 (Abidjan, 1981).Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 Calculated from the Government's budget submission to the National Assembly, 1981.

page 30 note 1 La Côte d'Ivoire en chiffres, and the annual trade statistics of the Ministère de l'Économie, des Finances, et du Plan.

page 30 note 2 Based on shares of export earnings shown in Ivory Coast: the challenge of success, p. 81.

page 30 note 3 La Côte d'Ivoire en chiffres, pp. 122 and 128.

page 31 note 1 Ministère de l'Économie, des Finances, et du Plan, Budget Spécial d'Investissement et d'Equipment, 1980 and 1981 (Abidjan).Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 La Côte d'Ivoire en chiffres, pp. 119 and 126.

page 32 note 1 The information on the Divo Department presented hereafter is taken from Hecht, Robert M., ‘Cocoa and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change in Southern Ivory Coast’, Ph.D.dissertation, Cambridge University, 1981, unless otherwise cited.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 In 1979, for example, the agriculture service in Divo Department recorded 52 cases of arbitration, including damages to farms (15), evictions (3), disputed boundaries (25), and miscellaneous (9).

page 34 note 1 See, for example, Johnson, R. W., ‘Guinea’, in Dunn, John (ed.), West African States: failure and promise (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 3665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 34 note 2 Personal communication from an Abidjan cocoa trader.

page 36 note 1 For the Abé and Agni, see Dupire, M., ‘Planteurs autochtones et étrangers’, in Études Eburnéenes (Paris), 8, 1961;Google Scholar for the Memel-Fôte, Adioukrou H., Le Système politique de Lodjoukrou (Paris, 1980);Google Scholar for the Kobben, Beté A., ‘Le Planteur noir en basse Côte d'Ivoire’, in Études Eburnéenes, 5, 1956;Google Scholar for the Terray, Dida E., L'Organisation sociale des Dida (Abidjan, 1969);Google Scholar for the Gouro, , Meillassoux, Claude, L'Anthropologie économique des Gouro de Côte d'Ivoire (The Hague, 1964);Google Scholar and for the Schwartz, Wobé A., ‘L'Économie villageoise Guéré heir et aujourd'hui’, Abidjan, 1970.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 The term abusa is derived from a word in the Twi language of Ghana, meaning ‘three parts’. See Hill, Polly, The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana (Cambridge, 1963).Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 Even the unpublished Planning Ministry figures for the mid-1970s cited by Lee, loc. cit. p. 629, do not contain information on average household income or distribution by income category or percentile.

page 39 note 1 Ibid. p. 612.

page 39 note 2 Figures for 1954 are from the Archives de l'Afrique occidentale française, Dakar, 2G-54–26. The 1975 data are from the Recensement national agricole de Côte d'Ivoire (Abidjan, 1975).Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 This is based on G.D.P. growth of 7·5 per cent a year, offset by a population growth of 4·0 per cent annually.

page 40 note 2 This is based on average export earnings for 1960–2 and 1977–9, plus a price deflator of 7·47 per cent and a population growth rate of 4·0 per cent.

page 43 note 1 Amin, Samir, Le Développement du capitalisme en Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1967), p. 92.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Campbell, Bonnie, ‘The Ivory Coast’, in Dunn (ed.), op. cit. pp. 66–116.Google Scholar

page 43 note 3 Lee, loc. cit. p. 629.

page 44 note 1 Amin, op. cit. p. 91.

page 46 note 1 Adelman, I. and Morris, C. T., Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries (Stanford, 1973);Google ScholarChenery, Hollis et al. , Redistribution with Growth (Oxford, 1974).Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 Ivory Coast: the challenge of success, p. 134.

page 48 note 1 Chenery et al. op. cit. pp. 8–9.

page 50 note 1 Cohen, Michael A., Urban Policy and Political Conflict in Africa: a study of the Ivory Coast (Chicago, 1974), p. 63.Google Scholar

page 51 note 1 ‘SCOA en Côte d'Ivoire’, Company report, Paris, 1978.

page 52 note 1 Cohen, op. cit. pp. 58–9.