Abidjan emerges from the shadows of war

Abidjan, once known as the Paris of Africa, collapsed into
conflict during the tumultuous 2000s, but is rebounding
fast. The story of its ascent as one of west Africa's primary
hubs, its breakdown through a coup d'état and two civil
wars, and its subsequent revival, can all be traced - at least
in part - through the urbanisation of one of Africa's most
cosmopolitan cities.
Abidjan was not always such a bustling regional centre.
Precise data are scarce, but some estimates suggest that
50,000 people lived in Abidjan as recently as 1950, while
others put the figure closer to 150,000, according to the
University College London (UCL) Global Report on Human
Settlements 2003.
The government's last official census in 2006 estimated
that more than 5m people live in the metropolitan area. The
population has likely expanded since this date. Many
countries in Africa saw rapid urban growth in the post-
colonial period. Abidjan's population explosion - and Côte
d'Ivoire's large-scale immigration in general - was
different.
It was done by design, carefully planned by one of Africa's
most masterful autocrats, President Félix Houphouët-
Boigny. Like many African countries, Côte d'Ivoire's
economy has relied on commodity exports such as cocoa,
timber, palm oil, pineapples and coffee since independence
in 1960. Côte d'Ivoire could be renamed the Cocoa Coast
because cocoa is king.
Côte d'Ivoire overtook neighbouring Ghana in 1978 as the
world's leading producer and exporter of cocoa, according
to a 2014 report from the Ghana Cocoa Board.
This year Côte d'Ivoire is expected to account for 38% of the
world's cocoa production, yielding nearly double the
quantity harvested by Ghana, its nearest competitor,
according to the same report. Part of this boom was driven
by migrant labour, enticed by Mr Houphouët-Boigny. He
realised presciently that a large influx of farm labour would
create a surge in cocoa production, as Mike McGovern
makes clear in his 2011 book "Making War in Côte d'Ivoire".
The president proclaimed a new principle: if individuals
were willing and able to produce cocoa on vacant land, the
plot would become theirs. People arrived in droves, from
Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Mali. Côte
d'Ivoire became known as the "Ivorian Miracle", a testament
to its booming economy driven by cocoa.
As migrant labour crossed Côte d'Ivoire's porous borders,
some Ivorians from the countryside moved to Abidjan, and
some would-be migrant farmers bypassed a life in the
fields for a life in the city. By 1978 only one in ten residents
of Abidjan between the ages of 15 and 59 had been born
there, according to the UCL study. They had moved past
cocoa and into Cocody, one of Abidjan's bustling and fast-
growing neighbourhoods.
Rapid urbanisation can produce upheavals that are
managed far more easily in prosperous times than in
periods of crisis. Abidjan is a prime example: Mr
Houphouët-Boigny, a master of political patronage, spread
the wealth and kept the heat low on simmering tensions,
thus ensuring that they did not boil over.
Prosperous times, which had started at independence,
began to fade when cocoa prices declined in the 1980s. The
melting pot started to boil over in the 1990s. A perfect
storm of three jarring events turned the Ivorian miracle into
the Ivorian nightmare.
First, the economy was in a long-standing slide in the early
1990s, brought about by a decline in cocoa prices -
plunging from an average of $3,000 per metric tonne in the
late 1970s to as low as $1,100 in the early 1990s,
according to a 2007 IMF report. The well-lubricated system
of political patronage did not work as well when the
proverbial oil - cocoa profits - started to dry up.
Second, Mr Houphouët-Boigny died in December 1993. He
was the lynchpin of a system that relied on his personal
charisma and patronage relationships. When le Vieux ("the
old man"), as he was affectionately known by Ivorians, died
at the age of 88 after governing for 33 years, the system
began to unravel as his would-be successors vied for
power.
Third, multi-party democracy arrived at this critical point.
While a worthy ideal, the political system's opening to
outright competition was poorly timed to coincide with
economic free-fall, rising social tensions and a contentious
succession battle. These three developments heightened
tensions throughout the country. Struggling cocoa farmers
failing to make ends meet moved to the capital in search of
new opportunities. Internal migration continued from the
countryside to Abidjan.
During the era of the Ivorian miracle, tension in the capital
ran low. With enough wealth to share, it mattered less who
were the haves and who were the have-nots. But in the
1990s the economy contracted and political parties formed
along geographic lines. Successive presidents--starting
with Henri Konan Bédié and continuing with Robert Guei and
Laurent Gbagbo - sidelined the Rally of the Republicans
(RDR) party, representing primarily the northern half of the
country, including many migrant families that had come
during the boom period.
This political exclusion, combined with the economic
downturn and ethnic tensions partly fuelled by religious
divides, eventually contributed to a complete transformation
of a country and a city that had been the poster child of
African development for decades. Between 1999 and 2011,
the Paris of Africa would suffer through a coup d'état and
two civil wars.
The most recent conflict erupted after the November 2010
presidential election. The RDR's candidate, Alassane
Ouattara, a northerner, defeated Mr Gbago, the incumbent
and a southerner representing the Ivorian Popular Front
(FPI) party. The FPI refused to accept defeat and conflict
broke out shortly thereafter.
When I arrived in Abidjan for the first time in the summer of
2012, reminders of the conflict that had officially ended a
year previously were everywhere. Bullet holes pockmarked
the façades of some buildings and UN peacekeepers
patrolled the streets. During the 2011 civil war Abidjan
demonstrated how urbanisation transforms cities on the
continent into microcosms of national-level conflict.
One of the working-class neighbourhoods in the economic
capital, Yopougon, was home to some of the fiercest
violence during this war, as Gbagbo and Ouattara militias
fought each other.
Geographic origins - and the associated characteristics of
identity that they produce - do not disappear when people
move from the country to the city. Mr Ouattara's militias,
backed by the UN and the French military, won the war and
the presidency. Mr Gbagbo was arrested and is now facing
charges of crimes against humanity in the International
Criminal Court in The Hague. The FPI was severely
weakened.
Today Abidjan is re-emerging from these civil wars. Over
the last two years, economic growth has averaged 9%, one
of the world's highest. To sustain the progress, however,
Côte d'Ivoire will need to repeat what it did so well in the
post-colonial period: harness diversity as an asset and
ensure that governance can keep pace with demographic
growth.
Like much in Côte d'Ivoire, Abidjan is full of potential. The
headquarters of the African Development Bank, which was
relocated to Tunis as a result of the Ivorian conflict, is
scheduled to return to the city this year.
A long-overdue third bridge crossing the Abidjan lagoon,
sorely needed to alleviate choking congestion, is finally
back on track to be built by December. But a city cannot be
saved by major infrastructure projects and the return of
financial services alone. Just as economic decline
unravelled the Ivorian miracle in the 1990s and 2000s,
Abidjan's fragile resurgence could also be derailed again.
Water management may be one area to watch closely as a
substantive indicator of whether Abidjan is truly back on
track or simply good at putting on a show for the
international community.
The city is surrounded by water but has had problems
delivering clean water to its residents. For the moment it
appears that the government understands that sound public
infrastructure fuels growth: it is making major investments
in water and other vital foundations. Whether such
investments will be sustained remains to be seen.
Once rocked by war and ethnic tensions, Abidjan is again
rising. It is a microcosm of the country, a melting pot of
divided neighbourhoods on the brink of reconciliation and
revitalisation. Its experience underlines an important lesson
about demographic flows in Africa: without proper
management, urban migration can be a powder keg
threatening to blow up even the most miraculous of African
success stories.