Ivory Coast: Of beans and politics

The Ivorian cocoa season is due to get underway on Wednesday, though the quality of the crop in the world’s number-one grower is in question, as is the financial probity of the firms created to oversee it. In a country whose cocoa exports account for40% of world production, such events have notable political consequences.

On September 23, the Ivorian government scrapped the four semi state-owned companies charged with overseeing the cocoa and coffee sectors, replacing them with a temporary committee on a renewable seven-month mandate to do the same job.  Since the start of the government crackdown in June, arrests related to the sector’s clean-up have targeted both President Laurent Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and the opposition Democratic Party (PDCI). The arrests, along with strikes at the largest parastatal over unpaid wages, had held up exports and created a pretext for the full-scale overhaul.

The parastatals had been useful to the government as a source of emergency funds, dating from the outbreak of civil war in 2002 (the sector, which accounts for 40% of export income, kept producing all through the war).  In return, the agencies had been allowed to operate with impunity ever since. However, as the country re-engaged with the international aid community after the civil war, reform of the sector became a key donor demand.

Presiding over an investigation of his own party is risky for President Gbagbo, but it has clear political benefits. Anti-corruption is a populist strategy, which closes off an angle of attack for the well-organized opposition before elections. Even if the planned poll date of November 30 looks unfeasible, given the challenges of voter registration and rebel disarmament in the interim, Gbagbo’s activism suggests he favours an early poll.

As for the agricultural sector, is it questionable what difference the new system will make.  Some of the same figures from the corrupt old firms will get places on the new committee. The parastatals which were put in place to raise money for investment in production have not done their job, and the sector has suffered from that neglect. Disease, and an erosion of quality arising from overproduction, threaten levels of production in the next few years.

The state of Ivory Coast’s agriculture is best revealed by a comparison with neighbouring Ghana:  though a smaller producer (the world’s second-largest, producing somewhat over a half of Ivorian output) the state profited as a conduit for produce from Ivory Coast during its civil war and (more importantly) has concentrated on higher value-added production.  Its main cocoa marketing organisation Cocobod enjoys a relatively clean reputation and has insisted on strict quality standards, down to farm level. The result has been higher margins and more reliable production levels, allowing for future rather than spot sales of the produce at a higher margin.  However, the benefits of such a system will have to await political reform in Ivory Coast -- which, while underway, looks to be a slow process.