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People
Population
The population of Côte d'Ivoire is about 22 million. The overall population density is 48 persons per sq km (124 per sq mi). Urbanization is high at 3.7 percent per annum.
Cultural Demography
Côte d'Ivoire has more than 60 ethnic groups, usually classified into five principal divisions: Akan (east and center, including Lagoon peoples of the southeast), Krou (southwest), Southern Mande (west), Northern Mande (northwest), and Senoufo/Lobi (north center and northeast). The Baoules, in the Akan division, probably comprise the largest single subgroup with 23 percent of the population. They are based in the central region around Bouake and Yamoussoukro. The Betes in the Krou division comprise 18 percent, the Senoufos in the north fifteen percent, and the Malinkes 11 percent. Most of the principal divisions have a significant presence in neighboring countries.
Of the more than five million non-Ivorian Africans living in Côte d'Ivoire, one-third to one-half are from Burkina Faso; the rest are from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Liberia and Mauritania. The non-African expatriate community includes roughly 20,000 French and 100,000 Lebanese.
French is the official national language, but Dioula and 73 other languages are spoken.
Close to a third of the population of Côte d'Ivoire is Muslim, another third percent is Christian (mainly Roman Catholic). About fifteen percent follow indigenous animist religions. Christianity dominates in the south and the center of the country. Islam is predominant in the north and northeast. This Muslim/north, Christian/south divide is perhaps the most significant fissure in the population when considered in social and political terms.
Animism - a belief system, which affords consciousness to natural objects or to nature itself - is still present throughout the country, but increasingly it is part of syncretic religious developments in which Christianity and Islam are practiced concurrent to indigenous beliefs. Sects are recent phenomena. According to most local belief systems, spiritual beings-a creator, ancestral spirits and spirits associated with places and objects-can influence a person's life and luck. The distinction between the spiritual and physical "worlds" is irrelevant. Physical events have spiritual causes.
Also critical to Ivorian religion is lineage group. The spiritual unity of the descent group transcends distinctions among the unborn, the living and the deceased. Religious differences are not based on disagreements over dogma or doctrine. Different groups depending on their social and physical environments experience different spiritual and physical dangers. While missionaries viewed this as spiritual "chaos," for Ivorians this diversity is a spiritual obligation to the ancestral spirits. There is no necessary conflict between this recognition of ancestral spirits and the belief in one creator god.
Human Development
At 49.18 years of age (46.62 for males and 51.82 for females), life expectancy in Côte d'Ivoire is low. Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate is 85.71 deaths per 1,000 live births. Literacy is also low at 48.7 percent for the total population, however, that number obfuscates gender differences; while 60.8 percent of males are literate, only 38.6 percent of females over 15 years can read and write.
About 4.6 percent of GDP in this country is spent on educational expenditures. About 5.1 percent of GDP in this country is spent on health expenditures. The risk of infectious diseases in this country is very high. Food or waterborne diseasesinclude bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases include malaria and yellow fever; water contact diseases include schistosomiasis; animal contact diseases include rabies. There is also negligible risk of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza.
HIV/AIDS is a growing social, political and economic crisis. According to the World Health Organization, 11 percent of adults in Côte d'Ivoire are HIV-positive, and the numbers are increasing. In 1986 three percent of antenatal women in Abidjan were HIV-1 positive. By 1998 this figure had reached 14 percent. Outside of Abidjan estimates range from 6 to 13 percent. HIV in high risk groups increased from 27 percent in 1986 to over 84 percent in 1992-93, leveling off at 70 percent later in the 1990s. Separate estimates from the United States government sources taken more recently place the rate of infection for the overall population at 7 percent.
One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main areas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI places Cote d'Ivoire in the low human development category, at 149th place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliograpy for list of research sources.
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