Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf of Guinea to the south. With 30.9 million inhabitants in 2023, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa. Its official language is French, and indigenous languages are also widely used, including Bété, Baoulé, Dyula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has a religiously diverse population, including numerous followers of Islam, Christianity, and traditional faiths often entailing animism.
Paul Biya is a Cameroonian politician who has served as the second president of Cameroon since 1982, having previously been the fifth prime minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982. As of 2024, he is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa and the longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world and the oldest head of state in the world.
African French is the generic name of the varieties of the French language spoken by an estimated 167 million people in Africa in 2023 or 51% of the French-speaking population of the world spread across 34 countries and territories. This includes those who speak French as a first or second language in these 34 African countries and territories, but it does not include French speakers living in other African countries. Africa is thus the continent with the most French speakers in the world, and African French speakers now form a large and integral part of the Francophonie.
The Cameroon national football team, also known as the Indomitable Lions, represents Cameroon in men's international football. It is controlled by the Fédération Camerounaise de Football, a member of FIFA and its African confederation CAF.
In international relations, Françafrique is France's sphere of influence over former French and Belgian colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. The term was derived from the expression France-Afrique, which was used by the first president of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in 1955 to describe his country's close ties with France. It was later pejoratively renamed Françafrique by François-Xavier Verschave in 1998 to criticise the alleged corrupt and clandestine activities of various Franco-African political, economic and military networks, also defined as France's neocolonialism.
The Bassa are a Bantu ethnic group in Cameroon. They number approximately 800,000 individuals. The Bassa speak the Basaa language.
Kémi Séba, born Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi on 9 December 1981 in Strasbourg France, is a Pan-Africanist political leader, Beninese writer, and geopolitical journalist, seen as a prominent figure of anti-colonialist resistance in francophone Africa in the 21st century.
Nathalie is a female given name. It is a variant of the name Natalie/Natalia which is found in many languages, and is especially common in French and English-speaking countries.
Jean-Yves Le Drian is a French politician who served as Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs in the governments of Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex (2017–2022) and as Minister of Defence under President François Hollande (2012–2017). A former member of the Socialist Party, he had been an Independent from 2018 before founding Territories of Progress in 2020.
Puff-puff is a traditional snack made of fried dough and eaten across Africa, especially in the west of the continent. The name "puff-puff" is from Nigeria, but many other names and varieties of the pastry exist.
The economy of Ivory Coast is stable and currently growing, in the aftermath of political instability in recent decades. The Ivory Coast's economy is largely market-based and depends heavily on the agricultural sector. Almost 70% of the Ivorian people are engaged in some form of agricultural activity. The economy grew 82% in the 1960s, reaching a peak growth of 360% in the 1970s, but this proved unsustainable and it shrank by 28% in the 1980s and a further 22% in the 1990s. This decline, coupled with high population growth, resulted in a steady fall in living standards. The gross national product per capita, now rising again, was about US$727 in 1996. It was substantially higher two decades before. Real GDP growth is expected to average 6.5% in 2024–25.
Clinton Mua N'Jie is a Cameroonian professional footballer who plays for Liga I club Rapid București and the Cameroon national team. He is known for his pace and dribbling skills.
Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin was a Russian mercenary leader and oligarch. He led the Wagner Group, a private military company, and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until launching a rebellion in June 2023. Prigozhin was sometimes referred to as "Putin's chef" because he owned restaurants and catering businesses that provided services to the Kremlin. Once a convict in the Soviet Union, Prigozhin controlled a network of influential companies whose operations, according to a 2020 investigation, were "tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU".
The Wagner Group, officially known as PMC Wagner, is a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) controlled until 2023 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin. The Wagner Group has used infrastructure of the Russian Armed Forces. Evidence suggests that Wagner has been used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing it to have plausible deniability for military operations abroad, and hiding the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions.
Events in the year 2020 in Ivory Coast.
The Ivory Coast women's national rugby union team are a national sports team that represents the Ivory Coast in women's international rugby union. They played their first test match in 2021.
Pour une poignée d'ivoire is an autobiographical book written by Jean-Claude Vignoli about his work hunting animal traffickers in Africa. It was published by Éditions Favre in February 2023.
Emmanuel Junior Biumla Bayiha is a professional footballer who plays as a centre-back and defensive midfielder for Ligue 1 club Angers. Born in Ivory Coast, he represents France at youth international level.
Dimitri Sergeyevich Sytyi is a Russian financier and businessman who manages media and communications of the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic. He is considered a close ally to Russian president Vladimir Putin and the right-hand man of Yevgeny Prigozhin before the latter's death. Following Prigozhin's death, Sytyi has been described as the man running the Wagner Group and Russian operations in the Central African Republic alongside Vitaly Perfilev.
