Côte d´ivoire & Abidjan as it once was .....L´ancienne perle de la lagune

[Matthias Offodile]

Abidjan Pics


Photos from 1980-1986













car motorace




Motor Race pictures









Abidjan (1970)



Abidjan (late 1970´s/early 80´s)





Abidjan (1973)



Abidjan (1974), taken out of a personal blog, building under construction



Abidjan (1975), but not downtown area



Abidjan (1975), Pyramide building



Abidjan (1978)



Abidjan (1979)



Abidjan (1986) , pic of miserable quality but this is a middle class living areas



Abidjan (mid 80´s because the tower dates back to 1982)











Abidjan (1980´s)





The famous film classic "Les Bronzés" was filmed here



La Tour Postel (completed in 1984)





Abidjan (all pics from 1980´s)


































another highway



image hosted on flickr


















1970s...you can see the place with the ice-skating rink that existed back then

image hosted on flickr


1950s..street-side cafés

[Matthias Offodile]

more Abidjan pics from 1965-1985





markets























































Parc du Plateau









Famous Club Med





below in the right corner you can see the huge ice-skating ring...the only one in Africa outside South Africa at that time

[Matthias Offodile]

this is Cocody





Shopping









airport that was built new in the 1990s







a project that was not realized, unfortunately, multi-billion dollar private investment that wanted to turn Abidjan into an African Riviera something like Nice in France

[LADEN]

Ivory Coast and Venezuela need government change.

["Jay Jay" Okocha]

lovely country

[evany]

I would happen if Africa didnt have any wars???

[popa1980]

People forget, IC was growing at China-like rates for 15 years. If it had maintained this development it would have been at least on par with Malaysia or Thailand.

[Matthias Offodile]

concert in Abidjan



Bruce Springsteen in Abidjan..before the fucking days began



Tracy Chapman giving concert in Abidjan



Sting in Abidjan ...again before the fucking days







French actress Brigitte Bardot in Abidjan in the 70´s





traditional Côte d´ivoire

[Matthias Offodile]

Abidjan









beach near Abidjan

One Public University of Yamoussoukro in Ivory Coast

Name: L´Institut National Supérieur de l'Enseignement Technique de de Yamoussoukro (INSET)

This magnificient university complex alone - which was part of the "Grandes Ecoles" Project - comprises a surface of 150 000 sqaure metres (!!!). It was completed in 1982






























Here is a larger view of the university complex



PS: There are two more huge universities complexes in Yamoussokro which I will post here as well! They are called "L'ENSTP" (=Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Travaux Publics)
and "L'ENSA" (=Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie). They three "Grandes Ecoles" were regrouped under the name "Institut National Polytechnique Houphouët Boigny" in 1996. It was Ivory Coast´s first leader´s dream to bring his country as fast as possible into the age of modernity and so the best was only good enough for him

Thank you dear Felix Houphoet Boigny for having made all this possible ...you will be remembered for progress and love for your country ...unfortunately, your successors only destroYed your legacy of peace and brotherhood among ethnicities, religions and races of your country....and din´t understand the true meaning of your speeches, your wisdom and your paroles.











...LA PAIX CE N´EST PAS UN MOT C´EST UN COMPORTEMENT

[popa1980]

Lets no forget that he was also incredibly corrupt ^. Maybe if that money wasted on turning his home village into a "capital" and constructing one of the biggest cathedrals in the world, was saved for a rainy day, IC would have been able to weather the economic crisis of the 80s better. Remember ICs economic decline actually has its roots in the 80s, at the same time Ghana was making its comeback.

[Matthias Offodile]

Popi, I won´t engage in any debate whatsoever with you on a country my family lived in the 1980s and numerous friends were there as well.

Abidjan had a poverty rate of 0.7% (!!!)...and for entire Cote d´ivoire it was a mere 10%...popi, this was by 1985…this is a huge achievement within Africa….I have provided those figures in the past from WorldBank!! Today those figures hover close to 50% and more that that...with a potentially coming war those figures will even grow beyond that!!

As opposed to the majority of presidnet, FHB was very rich before he entered office....owning gigantic plantations among other things.

Incredibly corrupt is something else, ...you don´t understand why a new capital was built given the comment of yours...otherwise his country and city would still look like a bushcountry...anyway, the Laurent Ggabo and those moron are turning it again into that.

And don´t turn this thread into your hatred debates...it is a picture gallery….and don´t dig up pictures just to see you injecting your poison..

and if Cote d´ivoire falls - which is quite likely given the current turn of events, your dear country Ghana will be affected as well!

and as opposed to your Ghana which will soon export oil (easy money), IC wealth was ALL created by agriculture and small industries and a leader who had a vision!!

[Matthias Offodile]

a scientific study on Côte d´ivoire´s poverty rate evolution from 1985 to today

"Indebtedness, poverty and policy in Côte d´ivoire: Responses of a formerly rich country

Department of Economics

Gothenburg University
Sweden

here is the link:

http://website1.wider.unu.edu/confer..._4_Mugerwa.pdf

Scroll to page 5, you will find Worldbank figures showing that the poverty rate in Abidjan was just a mere 0.7 percent in 1985! (Worldbank figures in the report!!) in the countryside it was higher but faaaaaar below the terrifying levels that one sees today




Entire Ivory Coast had a poverty level of 10% in 1985 (very good by African standards) ...it rose to 36,8% by 1995 and now is close to 50% (if not even more)


COTE D'IVOIRE: Poverty getting worse - study

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81804

Very sad , indeed!!!

[popa1980]

Originally Posted by Matthias Offodile

Popi, I won´t engage in any debate whatsoever with you on a country my family lived in the 1980s and numerous friends were there as well.

Abidjan had a poverty rate of 0.7% (!!!)...and for entire Cote d´ivoire it was a mere 10%...popi, this was by 1985…this is a huge achievement within Africa….I have provided those figures in the past from WorldBank!! Today those figures hover close to 50% and more that that...with a potentially coming war those figures will even grow beyond that!!

As opposed to the majority of presidnet, FHB was very rich before he entered office....owning gigantic plantations among other things.

Incredibly corrupt is something else, ...you don´t understand why a new capital was built given the comment of yours...otherwise his country and city would still look like a bushcountry...anyway, the Laurent Ggabo and those moron are turning it again into that.

And don´t turn this thread into your hatred debates...it is a picture gallery….and don´t dig up pictures just to see you injecting your poison..

and if Cote d´ivoire falls - which is quite likely given the current turn of events, your dear country Ghana will be affected as well!

and as opposed to your Ghana which will soon export oil (easy money), IC wealth was ALL created by agriculture and small industries and a leader who had a vision!!

Matt, lets not pretend that you know much about economics- I presume this because despite being on the forum for years I rarely see you involved in economic debates unlike the rest of us.

A quick history of the Ivorian economy:

From 1960-80: near double digit growth driven by agric, import-substitution factories, and services.

The Ivorian economy started faltering in the 1980s when oil prices rose, and the prices of coffee/cocoa/sugar fell. As a result, the trade deficit rocketed and the economic growth slowed. It was also THEN, that hatred against foreigners began as people saw them as "competition" in an already strained economic climate. THAT is where the roots of the economic decline began, not with Gbagbo. HB was rich, but not THAT rich, before he was president. His wealth grossly surpassed what he could have possibly had from his legitimate family plantations. All the money he wasted and stole, could have been used to shore up the Ivorian economy during this crisis period. Maybe we wouldnt be in this mess now- because, after all, poor people make angry people.

The whole "save for a rainy day" concept was lost on him.

[popa1980]

http://www.crise.ox.ac.uk/pubs/workingpaper13.pdf

"From the 1980s, the Ivorian model slowly started to disintegrate. The negative economic environment exacerbated existing tensions between locals and foreign as well as internal migrants in the southern regions. These communal tensions were increasingly perceived as a conflict between north and south (Dembele 2003). As Dembele argues; “The communal conflict between north and south was mainly related to land issues and the presence of too many migrants from the centre and north in the rural economy in the south-western regions and the urban economy in the south” (Demble 2003: 36; translation by Langer)."


http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1113.html

Cote d'Ivoire's economy declined drastically in the second half of the 1980s. The incidence of poverty climbed from 30 percent in 1985 to 35 percent in 1987, and jumped to 46 percent in 1988. But how widespread was the collapse in living standards? Did a lucky few escape the decline? Using panels of data from the Cote d'Ivoire Living Standards Survey (for 1985-86, 1986-87, and 1987-88) allowed the authors to track the level of living for the same households over successive years.

^

FHB was in power till 1993! So as you can easily see here the nations decline started years before Bedie, Guei, Gbagbo ruled the nation.

[Matthias Offodile]

Sorry, popi...but mine are papers from the university - prepared from a man of science (an economist)!!! based on World Bank and UN figures!!

My family lived there in the 1980s...the crisis struck but the effects were barely palpable given the very strong broad-based growth in the the almost two decades before - something very few countries in Africa ever experienced.

I wonder why you always come and ruin threads that other people created...if you still continue with your crusade I will have all of these pictures erased...then you can go on with your bashing and hatred as your heart desires.

You have shown multiple times your covered hatred and jealousy towards Côte d´ivoire (and other countries)...You needn´t prove that to us here any more, we do know it.

[Matthias Offodile]

This article investigates the evolution of urban poverty in its various dimensions in Côte d'Ivoire since the eighties. The robustness of the results is checked using dominance criteria. An econometric analysis of the determinants of poverty complements the analysis. The study shows that the dynamic of poverty in terms of existence conditions can significantly differ from that of
monetary poverty. As was the case in the eighties, monetary poverty increased strongly in the nineties in spite of a return to sustained growth following the devaluation of the CFA Franc. Poverty in terms of existence conditions raised less before the adjustment and even decreased afterwards.

The different indicators of monetary poverty show an unambiguous progression in absolute poverty in urban areas between 1985 and 1995 (Table 1). Extreme poverty started to appear in Abidjan in 1993 with a rate of 0.9% of households concerned, which then increased to 4.6% in 1995.
However, the incidence of poverty at 2 US$ shows that simple poverty surged in 1988 (4.3% of poor households) and progressed rapidly until 1995 (15.2% of poor households in 1993 and 29.3% in 1995). In other cities, the incidence of extreme poverty was already around 3.4% of households in 1985, and then grew to approximately 16% in 1993 and to 14.5% in 1995. The rate of poverty at 2 US$ was also already high in 1985 at 12.3% and rose strongly from 1988 (25.4%) before exploding in the mid 1990s. In 1995, 52.4% of urban households living outside Abidjan had expenditures of less than 2 US$ per capita per day. The depth of poverty, which reflects the mean deviation of the expenditures of the poor relative to the poverty line, reveals that the increase in the incidence of poverty was accompanied by erosion in the average situation. Similarly, the indicator of the severity of poverty, which is a combination of the poverty rate, the mean degree of poverty and a measure of inequality between the poor, continued to grow until 1995. With the start of economic recovery in 1995, a year characterized by the highest rates of poverty, the incidence of extreme and simple poverty began to fall in Abidjan as well as in other cities. The levels respectively dropped to 5.9% and 31.1% in 1998 using the 2 US$ poverty line. In Abidjan the incidence of extreme poverty fell from 4.6% to 1.2%, while in other cities it dropped from 29.3% to 10.0%. The weight of poor households living in Abidjan with respect to the total share of poor urban households thus fell from 41% in 1995 to 28% in 1998. However, in contrast to what happened in other cities, the 1998 poverty rate in Abidjan did not decline below its 1993 level.
Even if an exact evaluation of the impact of the devaluation of the CFA Franc on poverty remains difficult, we can at least state that between 1995 and 1998 average real per capita expenditures of households living in Abidjan rose by 4.6% and that poverty dropped by 10.5 points (2 US$). This
suggests that the growth process was a non-negligible poverty reduction lever. However, as the confidence intervals in Table 1 show, it is important to mention that poverty trends in urban areas in Côte d'Ivoire are fragile. Indeed, except for the surveys of 1993 and 1998, the samples are rather
small and thus all the results suffer from weak precision. Dominance analysis (of first and second order), using Kolmogorov tests seems necessary to check the robustness of measured trends in the change in poverty over time as well as across regions. The significance tests of differences in
regional variations in expenditure levels were first undertaken, to verify whether at least one variation above the critical threshold exists for the whole distribution. We also ensured that for a large spectrum of poverty lines (from 0 to 4 times the 2 US$ line, covering more than 80% of the
distribution each time) the curves do not cross and that observed variations are significant. These tests allow us to confirm that the incidence of poverty was always higher in other urban centers than in Abidjan whatever the chosen year. The dominance analyses of the trends show that the increase in poverty, for urban areas as a whole, is unambiguous between 1985 and 1995 since the stated trends are confirmed up to the line of 4 to
5 US$ per capita per day (see Table A1, Appendix). After 1995 the changes diverge noticeably between Abidjan and the other urban centers. With respect to the fall in the FGT poverty indicators between 1995 and 1998 in Abidjan, the dominance analysis confirms that poverty did not decline below the 1993 level. Conversely, in secondary urban centers, poverty indicators dropped significantly between 1993 and 1998, at least for all poverty lines below 4 US$. All these results have been reconfirmed by sequential dominance tests (results not presented here, see Bour & Pasquier, 2000), which allow for equivalence scale effects and thus control for the demographic composition of households. Whereas the monetary situation of urban households outside of Abidjan improved between 1993 and 1998, whatever the household-type considered, the opposite
was true in Abidjan.

Inequality and expenditure distributions

Average consumption expenditure trends confirm the severe worsening of poverty in urban areas. Whereas in 1985 the average level of per capita expenditures in Abidjan was the double of the national average (urban and rural), in 1995 it was only one and a half times higher. At the same time, the average level of consumption expenditures in other urban areas was close to the national average. This severe drop hit all budget items, in Abidjan as well as in other urban centers.
Whereas urban households outside Abidjan benefited quickly from the economic recovery after the devaluation, households in Abidjan benefited only after 1996. The small increases in expenditure levels of urban households, however, did not allow a return to expenditure levels of the mid 1980s: more precisely, average expenditure in urban Côte d'Ivoire fell, on average, by 5% per year, corresponding to a drop of 50% over 13 years (....)

Comparison with macroeconomic trends

The severe drop in expenditure levels in the 1980s and in the first half of the 1990s is partly corroborated by the changes in average income levels.4 The survey data show that between 1985 and 1995 average real monthly wages of civil servants fell by 44% in Abidjan, and by 56% in other urban centers. Average real monthly wages of private sector wage earners fell by 52% in Abidjan and by 64% in urban centers.(.....)
The recovery, starting in 1994, was due mainly to a favorable evolution of international export crop prices, record coffee and cocoa productions, a return of aid and new private capital attracted by the privatization process. The latter explains the increase in private investment reported in the national
accounts (IMF, 2000). Even if some of the recovery components are linked to growth in the modern sector, the general situation of urban consumers improved only modestly. The monetary approach reveals a strong increasing poverty trend in urban areas between 1985 and 1995, then a weak declining poverty trend after 1995, which did not, however, allow a significant drop in urban poverty.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/dr...ened_urban.pdf

[Matthias Offodile]

...those figures would have even beeen much better if you had them from 1975-1985


Construction still happned in the 1980s

Talk to Ivorians of that time, talk to other francophone Africans, to French people that lived there or still live there ...they will clearly state that Côte d´ivoire nowadays is a mere shadow of its former self. ...as I said before , Côte d´ivoire didn´t have any large quantities of oil but still managed to have a thriving and modern country with SS Africa´s second largest and most modern port behind Durban and West Africa´s largest oil refinieries where Nigeria sent its oil to. Ever heared of the Rotterdam of West africa?

I wonder what the country would have looked like if it swam in Nigeria´s vast oil reserves?...Surely another Dubai in Africa already born in the 1970s....but FHB didn´t want to have any oil, he expressed that repeatedly, he said agriculture is the backbone for his country....the effects are still visible....if a Mr Laurent Ggabo or Bedie - that drunkard - had taken over after independence the country would have entered into a tail-spin already in the early 1960s and ressemble something like Sierra Leone today....anyway, his succesors are working hard to make it look like those failed states bordering C.I.´s West.

[Matthias Offodile]

An article from New York Times from 1982...so nothing scientifc , just a scence shot from that time and how it was depicted in the Press...so this was Abidjan almost 30 years ago, far from the images of paid thugs and disenchanted youth that roam the streets and are ready to steal and murder nowadays

VIETNAMESE FARE IN ABIDJAN



Published: May 30, 1982


PRANAY B.GUPTE is a Times correspondent based in Nairobi. BY PRANAY B.GUPTE

When South Vietnam was overrun by the North Vietnamese in 1974, Do Dac Loc, South Vietnam's Ambassador to the Ivory Coast, his wife and their six children stayed on in Abidjan, and thousands of Ivorians, Frenchmen and other nationals are delighted that they did. For the Loc family operates a first-rate Vietnamese restaurant in the bustling tropical capital in West Africa.

Abidjan, probably the most prosperous city in all of black Africa, has excellent French, Ivorian and Chinese restaurants by the score and residents of the city have fussy palates. Yet even the most demanding Abidjani food critic applauds after a meal at Mr. Loc's establishment, Le Dalat.

Vietnam starts at the gate of the one-story bungalow that Mr. Loc has built at 12 Rue Paris in the Plateau section of Abidjan (telephone 327950; reservations are advised because only about 25 diners can be accommodated at any one time). There are Vietnamese motifs outside and displays of Vietnamese porcelain and paintings inside. Each table, covered with crisp Ivorian linen, has a vase of freshly cut flowers from Mr. Loc's garden. There is no piped-music and the air-conditioning is correctly adjusted for the constant humidity.

The time it takes to serve dishes is calibrated differently for lunch and for dinner: At lunchtime, service is so swift that it reminds one of fast-food restaurants in the United States. Since the restaurant is situated in the heart of Abidjan's busy commercial section, dozens of office workers and executives, as well as diplomats, crowd Le Dalat at lunch.

Practically every dish on the menu is good, but here are some suggestions. To start with, try the soupe d'abalone with transparent vermicelli. At lunchtime, this soup, which is served in an enormous bowl, can be a meal in itself.

After the soup, nems are a favorite. They are Vietnamese egg rolls stuffed with meat, usually pork. There is a special way to eat a nem: Take a small lettuce leaf, place some mint shreds on it, then wrap the lettuce around the roll, dunk it first in chili sauce and next in a sweetish relish and pop it into your mouth.

The main course might be crevettes maison or crevettes sauce piquante, both shrimps with sauce. Boeuf aux ananas (beef with pineapple) is sauted or pan-fried, depending on your preference. Poulet amande (chicken with almonds) is another recommended dish. It comes with a sauce that contains mint and a dash of curry. Porc a la citronnelle is shredded pork immersed in a hill of lemon sauce and mint leaves.

The main courses should be eaten with rice, preferably simple boiled rice rather than fried rice. For the first-time visitor, it's a bit of a shock to see a Vietnamese restaurant in Africa. Somehow, Chinese, Malagasy, Thai or Creole restaurants - to name a few that grace this city of one million people - seem not to draw sighs of surprise. But the Ivory Coast has been a haven for the politically dispossessed for many years, as long as they are not Communist, and it has been offering sanctuary to an increasing number of Vietnamese since 1974. In that year, the Loc family was one of five Vietnamese families in Abidjan. Now there are more than 3,000 Vietnamese men, women and children and a dozen Vietnamese restaurants.

The children serve as waiters. Mr. Loc and his wife prepare the 70 dishes offered daily on the menu, which is printed on beige ricepaper. A couple can dine and wine well for about $20.

The Vietnamese have been drawn to the Ivory Coast, in part, because they share the Ivorians's French heritage. Also, the climate is tropical and humid, much like Vietnam's. And because of the economic boom. Opportunities are increasingly available in service industries, such as catering. So these days it is not uncommon to see Vietnamese faces behind counters in stores, behind the wheels of taxis and behind the cash registers of such restaurants as Le Dalat, which have prospered.

Illustrations: photo of Le Dalat

[Matthias Offodile]

Let me continue with the picture and video tour...that´s what the this thread is about.

Diaporama des photos d'Abidjan des années 1980


http://www.wafbu-tv.com/page_video_b...2b956&code=680

[popa1980]

Originally Posted by Matthias Offodile

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/dr...ened_urban.pdf

LOL Matt. You have just posted information which confirms that the economic rot started in the 80s under FHB. Of course it wasnt as bad as it was now because that was just the beginning of the decline. If a country has been declining for 30 years its obviously going to be better in the start rather than the end of this period. Thats only common sense.