Cote d'Ivoire after Live Aid

Côte d'Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, is a country located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. Up until 1975, the world's leading cocoa producer, was the most prosperous of the sub-Saharan African countries due to its agricultural exports. However, the country has been in an economic recession since 1986 which has led to a reduction in GNP. This economic instability, that it had not experienced previously, lead to extensive urban poverty; a recent phenomenon in Côte d’Ivoire. Since 1999, Cote d’Ivoire has experienced several episodes of political unrest and violence - most recently, the post-electoral crisis following presidential elections in late 2010 and early 2011.

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Time Line

• 1944 Felix Houphouet-Boigny founds a union of African farmers. He later becomes Ivory Coast's first president

• 1958 Ivory Coast becomes a republic within the French Community.

• 1960 France grants independence under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He holds power until he dies in 1993.

Children at the SOS Children's Village Abijan (Abobo Gare) Cote D'Ivoire

• 1971 Invited by a retiring Priest, SOS Children take over a Roman Catholic orphanage in Abobo Gare, Abidjan (the main bus station) in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire and transform it from an orphanage to providing family-based care in an SOS Children's Village, the first in the continent of Africa. A primary school for local children was included in this modest start for SOS Children in Africa.

• 1990 Opposition parties legalised; Houphouet-Boigny wins Ivory Coast's first multiparty presidential election, beating Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).

• 1993 Henri Konan Bedie becomes president following the death of Houphouet-Boigny.

• 2000 Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim, runs for president; his plan to challenge Bedie splits country along ethnic and religious lines. Fighting erupts between Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters and followers of Ouattara, who are mostly Muslims from the north.

• 2001 Reports of child slave ship off Africa's west coast spark allegations of child slavery in cocoa plantations, straining international relations. Government moves to tackle the issue.

• 2002 A troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the ongoing discontent of northern Muslims who felt they were being discriminated against in Ivorian politics. Thousands were killed in the conflict.

• 2004 Most of the fighting ends. However, the country remained tense and divided. French and UN peacekeepers patrolled the buffer zone which separated the north, held by rebels, and the government-controlled south.

• 2006 Government resigns over a scandal involving the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan. Fumes from the waste kill three people and make many more ill.

• 2010 Election commission declares Ouattara the winner of the run-off. Gbagbo refuses to accept result and dispute between the two camps soon escalates into violence, which sees seven women killed in a peaceful protest.

• 2011 Alassane Ouattara is inaugurated as president.

• 2012 Free access to basic healthcare introduced by the new government. However the countries’ hospitals and clinics struggle to provide services.