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IOM Vision
IOM aims to contribute to durable and inclusive well-being, social cohesion, and peacebuilding in the northern regions of Côte d’Ivoire, working to reduce vulnerabilities while strengthening resilience and prosperity in areas impacted by human mobility. Assistance to displaced populations aims not only to respond to immediate needs, but also to provide sustainable access to basic services, employment, and livelihoods. IOM also contributes to finding solutions to forced displacement and facilitating safe and regular migration through protection assistance, conflict management and prevention, peace consolidation, and support for national and inter-agency development processes.
Context analysis
In recent years, the security situation in the Sahel has degraded significantly due to a multiplication of attacks by non-state armed groups and an increase in cross-border organized crime, creating serious threats for the coastal states of West Africa and contributing to large population movements.
In Côte d'Ivoire, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that over 54,000 individuals arrived from Burkina Faso and Mali between April 2021 and March 2024, the majority of whom are women and children (UNHCR 2024). The most vulnerable groups are disproportionally affected by this displacement, with reports indicating a large proportion of women-headed households and separated/unaccompanied children. While border communities in Côte d'Ivoire have largely welcomed these populations fleeing from violence into the country, many displaced persons arrive with high humanitarian and protection needs. This displacement situation, coupled with the degradation of the situation in Mali and Burkina Faso, is strongly affecting the resilience, stability, and security in northern Côte d'Ivoire.
While most residents of this region report in security perception surveys that the deployment of troops at the border has reinforced security, many residents remain concerned about traveling in remote areas or crossing the border, particularly towards Burkina Faso, to visit their families, access services, and continue their cross-border economic activities (IOM 2021).
In the north of the country, host and displaced communities' living conditions remain precarious. This situation is exacerbated by pre-existing fragilities such as unequal and limited access to public services and employment opportunities compared to opportunities in Côte d'Ivoire's urban centres in the south, especially for women and youth (particularly in the sectors of education - with only 65.4 per cent of girls in the Tchologo region enrolled in school, according to the UN Common Country Analysis (2021), health, and water, sanitation, and hygiene). The economic situation is equally worrying, with the highest poverty rates in the country.
In these regions, the economy remains predominantly informal, mainly focused on agriculture (91.7% of the population of the Tchologo region, 85.8% in the Folon, and 77% in the Bounkani region), craftsmanship, and small businesses (INS 2022). Displaced populations' livelihoods, who live mainly from trade and livestock, are therefore also at risk of becoming a source of conflict due to issues related to access and allocation to land and limited natural resources as well as poor access to basic services. Furthermore, these tensions are aggravated by the negative effects of climate change, which impacts agriculture considerably, pushing rural populations to move towards large cities, to opt for irregular migration, to engage in illicit activities or to illegally expand their farms, often to the detriment of forest cover in both protected national parks and traditional transhumance corridors.
Illustrating these trends, perception surveys demonstrate that the main sources of conflict in the north is the coexistence between farmers and livestock herders and between transhumant herders and sedentary herders, entering into direct competition over pasture and water access (IOM 2022; RBM 2021). This, coupled with a negative perception and risk of stigmatization of Fulani communities, from which the majority of displaced populations and transhumant herders originate, could thus accelerate the weakening of social cohesion between communities. Growing insecurity has led to a political decision by Cote d'Ivoire to close its borders to the livestock of asylum-seekers. However, this measure did not stop the movements of transhumant herds across the countries of the region, but has instead made them more difficult, thus weakening the necessary spaces for exchanges between transhumant herders, host populations and local authorities.
As a coastal country in West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire has experienced extreme meteorological and climatic events over the past two decades, with increasingly frequent floods in various regions. Additionally, episodes of drought have occurred in the North of the country. Aside from the forced displacement of populations, these events have resulted in loss of life and significant material damage.
Furthermore, the effects of climate variability (climate risks) and the persistence of other disaster risks in the country have highlighted significant capacity building needs, such as consolidating and strengthening approaches meant to collect evidence and disaggregated data to better guide preparedness, response, and particularly, rehabilitation actions to facilitate the resettlement of displaced populations following disasters.