Ivory Coast’s cocoa sector faces relentless struggle with child labour

The election pitted two formally allied parties against each other. The dueling claims of victory came as early provisional results were released. Turnout was low due to recent violence.

Voters in Ivory Coast are electing a new parliament, with two former presidents hoping to keep the allies of the current leader, Alassane Ouattara, from claiming "absolute power."

Ivory Coast Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko has died of cancer in Germany. He had a long media and political career in the West African nation.

Both men had been accused of inciting violence after the tense elections in 2010. Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude have been considering returning to the Ivory Coast.

Months after the delivery of half a million Astrazeneca vaccines, Ivory Coast is still struggling to get people into vaccination centres after suspicion and unfounded rumours have fuelled fears about getting the jab. And around 150,000 Burundian refugees are staying at camps in Tanzania after fleeing the violent political unrest in their homeland that began in 2015. Dodoma is trying to send them back, but many fear the country remains unsafe. Finally, South African film “My Octopus Teacher” schools its rivals and is named “Best Documentary” at the Oscars.

In our show "Correspondence", we explore how the world is coping with the twists and turns of 2021, amid the consequences of Covid-19 and beyond. FRANCE 24 brings you a selection of original reports from our correspondents and teams around the globe.

In Ivory Coast, corruption has infected most of the public sector – from procurement contracts, to customs services, to recruitment. The country is ranked 106th out of 180 countries, according to the NGO Transparency International. Re-elected in October of last year, President Alassane Ouattara has promised to make the fight against corruption one of the priorities of his new term. But so far, no concrete measures have been put in place to tackle the problem. Our correspondents report.

After a decade of absence, the former leader of the Ivory Coast is planning to go back to his country. Having been acquitted by the ICC, he may still face a conviction at home.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, is facing mounting demand from Western consumers for ethical chocolate -- a product that is ecologically sound and made without child labour. In a widely publicised operation named Nawa 2, police picked up dozens of children in a crackdown in Soubre, the country's cocoa-producing heartland 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of the economic capital Abidjan.

Ivory Coast ex-President Laurent Gbagbo spent a decade outside of the country fighting war crimes charges. His supporters celebrated the politician's return.

His supporters had been waiting ten years for this day. Laurent Gbagbo basked in a hero's welcome for his grand return to Abidjan. It took a brief rekindling of Ivory Coast's civil war to force out the former president when he refused to concede the 2010 election to current leader Alassane Ouattara. After the case against Gbagbo fell apart at the International Criminal Court, we ask about the terms and conditions of the return of a larger-than-life political figure.

An Ivory Coast court on Wednesday sentenced former prime minister and rebel leader Guillaume Soro in absentia to life in prison on charges of plotting a coup against his former ally President Alassane Ouattara.