A contrasted habitat between cities and countryside
Traditional housing differs from region to region: from round huts made of banco and straw roofs to rectangular huts and terraced huts inspired by 14th-century Sudanese architecture... However, this traditional habitat is tending to disappear, replaced by standardized "solid" housing, out of concern for prevention and health, but also to show off its success and opulence. Traditional materials (earth, straw, palm, raffia, etc.) are abandoned in favor of rectangular houses built of brick or breeze-block and covered in sheet metal, with a living room, bedrooms and, if possible, a shower and toilet. In some village enclaves, such as Blokoss in Abidjan, the residential sprawl of the traditional village has given way to the verticality of apartment blocks, each floor housing successive generations of the patriarchs' families, then tenants from outside. In Abidjan and other major cities, there are blocks of flats similar to our HLMs, housing a population of immigrant workers, while others, more luxurious, bring together part of the new Ivorian bourgeoisie. Some of the country's towns and former coastal trading posts are still home to old colonial mansions and patrician houses, small planter's dwellings with four-sided tin roofs and louvered shutters. But most are now in an advanced state of disrepair.
The reappropriation of urban space
In the working-class neighborhoods of large cities, we're seeing a reappropriation of public space through courtyard housing, in keeping with the African concept of the extended family. This form of community living, inherited from the Malinke tradition, is widespread in Abobo, for example. It brings together several family units organized around the head of the residence. In addition to its attractive rents, the common courtyard is a resilience mechanism in a constrained space where economic resources are hard to find, and reproduces a village-like community dynamic in the middle of the city. Nevertheless, those who can afford it will prefer to opt for a detached house in the upmarket Riviera, Marcory or Cocody neighborhoods. They can also opt for the intermediate solution of residential estates, housing middle- to upper-class Ivorians. Enclosed houses in gated residences, flanked by perimeter walls, gates and guards, alleyways and green spaces. A common courtyard in a more or less individualized "upmarket" version, where the syndicate acts as the "village council". The evolution of housing in Côte d'Ivoire is also closely linked to the political and security context. In the 1980s, there were no fences around residences. They appeared in the following decade, when crime soared in Abidjan. Over the years, fences were built, often topped off with dissuasive barbed wire. The 1990s also saw a popular offensive to reclaim space, with sidewalks disappearing and being taken over by stores, stalls and "wild" markets. Added to this was the development of "squats" and shanty towns, and the proliferation of maquis, places of urban sociability erected for some with three bits of string and wood on the smallest available square metre.
The very strong family value
The most widespread conception is still that of the extended family, including a strong sense of solidarity. Through a mechanism of respective interests and greed, however, this "obligation of solidarity" on the part of the family, although based on a highly laudable principle, will often tend to degenerate into parasitism, enslaving those who manage to get by to a forced redistribution of their earnings. Cadets' responsibility towards their elders is still very much alive in social relations, and represents an extremely strong social pressure: looking after parents, providing for their needs, is almost a "divine duty", and those who shirk it or are unable to assume this obligation, which could almost be considered "institutional", are frowned upon, if not outright denigrated.
Deference to Elders
Girls and boys grow up together until the age of seven, at which point their lives become separate, each oriented towards gender-specific tasks. In Africa, age is a guarantee of wisdom and therefore respectability, and great importance is attached to the right of eldership. Thus, the "youngest" must always show deference to his "big brother", "uncle" or "old father", even if the latter belongs to a lower socio-professional category or is not particularly worthy of esteem. In contrast to our Western societies, where the term "le vieux, la vieille" is generally perceived as disrespectful, in Côte d'Ivoire it reflects a form of unshakeable attachment to ancestral wisdom, which also manifests itself in the special place occupied by the doyens within the community. When visiting a village, for example, it is customary to greet the elders in the same way as the village chief.
Assignment of first names
Despite a certain attraction to technical modernism, which above all enables people to flaunt their financial (and therefore social) superiority in more or less ostentatious ways (cars, cell phones, jewelry, clothes, etc.), the vast majority of Ivorians remain deeply attached to age-old traditions and customs. This is particularly evident in the attribution of first names: in traditional environments, the various aspects of daily life remain closely linked to calendar time and the division of weeks into days. In the Akan group, for example, each day of the week has a specific masculine and feminine name. Some northern groups, such as the Baoulés and Sénoufos, name their children according to the day and a particular event marking the moment of birth. In the West, the first name is chosen according to the circumstances of the birth. For others, the name is determined by birth order. Some children bear their father's first name as well as their first name, which multiplies the number of homonyms, particularly among boys (Kouassi Kouassi, Kouamé Kouamé, etc.). Also noteworthy is the adoption in Christian circles of an additional baptismal name (Kouakou Kouassi Ernest, Kouamé Aya Georgette, etc.). Among Muslims, first names of Islamic religious origin are very common.
A youth out of step
The perverse effect of this age-based hierarchy is that society remains highly gerontocratic and tends to discredit young people, who find themselves shackled by social, religious and traditional shackles, and end up taking over areas not occupied by their elders or by the state, such as new technologies. In a society where over 75% of the population is under the age of 35 and the average age of those in positions of responsibility is 60 (compared with a national average of 20.7), there is a discrepancy between the social and demographic weight of young people, and the responsibilities they occupy. This situation has given rise to an identity crisis that is manifesting itself in extreme forms, with the phenomenon of "microbes", young delinquents aged between 8 and 25 who attack citizens with knives to rob them of their possessions in deprived neighborhoods. But also through immigration to Europe, seen as the only alternative to emancipate oneself from a system perceived as "locked-in". The dominant economic models are also to blame, as they do not open up spaces in which young people can flourish and develop their ideas.
The Ivorian of the 21st century
The Ivorian of the 21st century projects himself into a globalized society structured around uniform modes of consumption and gratification. The advent of the cell phone, the Internet and social networks has short-circuited physical and psychological distances, narrowing the gap between town and country and creating a kind of common space where urban lifestyles and consumption patterns impose themselves as the yardsticks of social success and happiness. Thus, in the far north-east, the post-adolescent Lobi will be wearing a Barça jersey and designer sunglasses, while the first thing the illegal gold digger in Tortiya will buy is a plasma screen or a freezer, while his Abidjan brothers, on Saturday afternoons to stroll and take selfies in the aisles of the Cap Sud shopping mall, or debrief the latest prime of The Voice Afrique over a hamburger, which they're sure to photograph and post on their Instagram accounts. Even the dreaded microbes, who borrowed their nickname from the Brazilian favela gangs filmed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund in City of God, are adepts, like many ghettoized outsiders, of this totally trivialized and aestheticized violence.
An inadequate education system
The Ivorian education system is full of contrasts. In the countryside, it is still deeply rooted in the idea that a large number of offspring is a guarantee of prestige and prosperity (having many children ensures an abundant workforce and increases the chances of a peaceful old age, a presupposition that is amplified in rural areas). In the city, children's lives are conditioned by the ups and downs of their parents' married life. Their upbringing may be more or less harmonious, depending on whether they grow up in a happy home or are tossed from one parent to another. Their upbringing will then vary according to the social status of the relatives who take them in, but also to the degree of polygamy of the father and the preferential treatment he accords to his respective households, a practice that is still widespread today despite the official introduction of monogamy by the 1964 Civil Code. Although the country is recording improvements due to the compulsory schooling plan for 6-16 year-olds initiated by Alassane Ouattara in 2015, the level of illiteracy remains relatively high. It ranges from 30.1% in the city of Abidjan to 84.7% in the Folon region (northwest of the country), and is more marked in the northern regions (over 70%) than in the southern regions around Abidjan, where figures remain below the national average (63%). Boys predominate over girls, especially in rural and northern areas.
Early pregnancies
In 2023, the enrolment rate for girls was 56% in primary school, compared with 68% for boys, and 25% in secondary school, compared with 33% for boys. Although school attendance is compulsory up to the age of 16, only 50% of enrolled girls finish middle school, and 25% high school. Many of those who are enrolled in school find themselves at the mercy of their parents as soon as they return home. The first worrying and persistent scourge that causes them to drop out of school is the phenomenon of early pregnancy. In 2023, 4,137 cases of pregnancy among minors were recorded. These figures reveal a multi-faceted crisis affecting schools, society, the family and the economy. In most cases, these pregnancies are the result of teachers using their status to blackmail underage girls into giving them good grades. The UN estimates that one in four teenage girls in Côte d'Ivoire has already become pregnant at school. The CNDH (Conseil National des Droits de l'Homme - National Human Rights Council) has set up awareness-raising campaigns to prevent Ivorian girls from dropping out of school.
A failing health care system
Plagued by corruption, which hampers public policy, and the "dehumanization" of healthcare staff, the Ivorian healthcare system appears highly dysfunctional. A considerable effort was nevertheless made in 2019 with the creation of the CMU (Universal Health Fund), which includes a contributory scheme financed by contributions from insured persons, for a monthly amount of 1,000 FCFA and now covers 3 million Ivorians. Generally speaking, here we don't treat, we silence pain with drugs. In Côte d'Ivoire, 96% of pharmaceutical products are imported. As consultations and medicines are very expensive, people generally only go to hospital when there's nothing left to do, so it's seen as more of a hospital than a place of healing. As a result, Ivorians often buy out-of-date or counterfeit drugs from "pharmacies par terre" (itinerant drug sellers). In Abidjan, the infamous Adjamé Roxy market is the biggest repository of counterfeit medicines. In addition, many people turn to traditional medicine, which offers the advantage of free consultations and payment for treatment staggered according to the patient's means. This sector, although officially recognized by the WHO and attempting to structure itself via the Fédération des tradipraticiens de Côte d'Ivoire, is nonetheless plagued by numerous charlatans. As a result, many Ivorians die "as a gift", when it would be possible to save a human life. Health indicators show slow progress, due to low investment in the sector. Life expectancy is only 57 years and mortality among children under 5 remains a cause for concern, having been almost halved between 2012 (108 ‰) and 2023 (52 ‰), which is very encouraging. Indicators relating to malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS (2.9% prevalence in 2024 versus 3.7% in 2012) show relative progress due to the various external financing and funds from which the country benefits. The main infectious diseases in Côte d'Ivoire are bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and typhoid fever (waterborne diseases); malaria, dengue and yellow fever (vector-borne diseases); schistosomiasis or bilharzia (waterborne diseases); rabies (animal-borne diseases), and meningococcal meningitis (respiratory disease), a seasonal infection closely linked to the harmattan.
Women's "soft power
Of course, the status of women varies from urban to rural, traditional to modern. The typical image of the African woman plundering millet in the village sums up the responsibilities she bears: from dawn until dusk, she is responsible for providing for the household or community, not only in terms of household chores, but also in terms of harvesting, production and child-rearing. Little girls are introduced to their future role as mothers from an early age, and are expected to look after their younger brothers and sisters as if they were their own children. Although officially, women are generally placed in a position of inferiority in formal hierarchical relationships, and the weight of prejudice and cultural perceptions almost always relegates them to the background, unofficially, their discreet yet firm influence plays a considerable role in the way the economy, politics and civil society evolve. From an economic point of view, women are heavily involved in the informal food and grocery sectors (80% of the Ivorian economy), and control most of the resources essential to the survival of large cities. Moreover, as mothers and procreators, they are de facto the object of a quasi-sacred respect linked to a whole magico-religious symbolism.
Women in matriarchal societies
In certain matriarchal societies, such as the chieftaincy or kingdom-type state societies found among the Akans (whose founding figure is Queen Abla Pokou), women play the role of eminence grise and assume important political functions. They are "queen mothers", sitting alongside the chief and acting as his intimate advisors, and play the role of "constitutionality" control, i.e., checking the charter and the conformity of the rules with the king and the village chief. They also represent the people's institutional and legal memory. In times of risk and adversity, it's the women who requisition the men and make the decisions through an institution of which they have a monopoly. Custodians of considerable knowledge, particularly in genealogy, they transmit both power and life, and are obligatorily consulted on the choice of heirs. This permeability and sharing of functions explains why the finery of Akan kings and chiefs resembles that of women.
The emancipation of women in power
Although in most other social organizations, women's participation in decision-making is derisory, or even virtually non-existent, the advancement of Ivorian women has nonetheless made progress, reflected in particular in their representativeness within state institutions (parliament and government). The new Constitution of the Third Republic, adopted in 2016, institutionalizes a minimum quota of 30% for women in Parliament. Even though they are under-represented, many women today find themselves well placed in decision-making, political, economic and artistic circles, testifying to notable advances in the status of women in Côte d'Ivoire. These include Akissi Kouamé, the first African woman to be promoted to the rank of General in the army; Yolande Doukouré, appointed President of the National Order of Architects in 2014; Christelle Vougo, Chef of the prestigious Saakan restaurant, and Édith Brou, web influencer and cyber-activist.. The fact remains that, while women occupy an increasingly important place in the public sphere, in the private sphere, the loving wife and mother devoted to her husband and children continues to embody the epinal image of the ideal woman, for men and women alike.
Forced marriage and excision
Nonetheless, the marked improvement in the status of women, particularly in the cities, is far from being the norm, and some questionable, even reprehensible, traditional practices, such as forced marriage and excision, still prevail today, particularly in certain western and northern regions, with sometimes irreversible social and medical consequences. According to the WHO, Côte d'Ivoire is one of the African countries most affected by excision, with 36% to 38% of women aged 15 to 49 undergoing the practice. Nearly 3 million girls are still subjected to the practice every year, despite the fact that genital mutilation has been banned in principle since 1998. It is not uncommon for young women or mother-daughters to flee their homes to escape the practice. Statistics vary according to ethnic group and level of education, rather than rural or urban conditions. However, there has been a marked decline in the 0-14 age group. In the north and northwest, where it is most common, prevalence is 73%, but only 11% among 0-14 year olds.
