Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

Box 2.3 Côte d’Ivoire’s MDG achievements
Consistently high growth rates of 7% p.a.
on average between 1960 and 1978 pushed
Côte d’Ivoire into the MIC bracket. With the
economic and political crises of the mid-1980s,
the incidence of poverty increased from 10%
(1985), to 35.8% in 1995, and to 48.9% in 2008.
Throughout this period, according to a 2010
Country Update report on the MDGs, the scores
on most of the other MDG targets worsened,
except for a few, including reducing the under-
economic growth rates, a booming cocoa and coffee
sector and large public investment. However, the
terminal decline of cocoa prices and increasing
debt burdens in the late 1970s and early 1980s led
to an economic crisis which, allied with the death
of president Houphouët-boigny in 1993, have led to
political instability ever since.
the relevance of the mDGs has to be seen in
this context of political instability and violent
upheavals. Following the devaluation of the Franc
de la communauté financière africaine (Franc
cFa) in 1994, oDa gradually began to decline, and
was dramatically interrupted by the International
Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the Eu in 1998
because of poor governance. the 1999 coup and an
attempted coup in 2002 resulted in the partitioning
of the country along north–South lines, peace
accords and relative stability in 2007, and more
post-electoral strife in 2011. these events form the
backdrop against which the donors, including the
Eu, have shifted their oDa to humanitarian and
peace-building efforts.
During the intervals of relative stability – in
2002, 2006 and finally in 2010 – the mDGs
were the reference points for attempts to resume
development planning, with technocrats in key
five mortality rate (from 181 to 125 per 1,000
live births) between 1998 and 2005, and a slight
reduction in the maternal mortality rate. These
improvements reflect the increase of vaccination
campaigns and the higher percentage of births
attended by skilled health workers. Following its
acceptance of the MDG Acceleration Framework
in 2010, the government has agreed to focus on
achieving the MDG on maternal health. (Côte
d’Ivoire case study)
government departments managing to ensure some
degree of continuity. In april 2006, the united
nations Development programme (unDp) and the
government developed a programme to enhance
efforts to achieve the mDGs, and a consultative
process was put in place to ensure participation,
sensitisation and the mobilisation of extra financial
resources. but the resumption of violent conflict
stalled these efforts. From 2010 a new accelerated
programme focusing on the key mDG target on
maternal health has been agreed with donors.
Developmental objectives have always existed
on paper, as the different generations of povertyreduction
strategy documents that explicitly
incorporate the mDGs, testify. but implementation
has been behind schedule. this suggests that
government used these plans to regain access to aid,
and to obtain the Heavily Indebted poor countries’
(HIpc) completion point (reached in June 2012),
which led to cancellation of 60% of the country’s
debt, thereby also establishing a basis for renewed
credibility among donors and foreign investors.
the importance of the mDGs as a means to help
secure external funding is underlined in the case
Study report: ‘The MDGs remain the reference point
in the development strategy, most certainly because
of their capacity to mobilise international funding.’
poSt-2015: Global actIon For an IncluSIvE anD SuStaInablE FuturE
In Côte d’Ivoire,
the relevance of
the MDGs has
to be seen in
this context
of political
instability and
violent upheavals.
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