Five silent crises are strangling rural Agboville, Côte d'Ivoire
They feed one another: no bank means no savings; no savings makes land the only currency; no land means exodus. SIKEWA tackles all five at once, because none can be solved in isolation — in Agboville first, then across Côte d'Ivoire.
The land produces. Families grow poorer.
Côte d'Ivoire's agricultural potential has never been the problem. What is missing is the financial, logistical and educational infrastructure that would let this production sustainably feed those who grow it.
1. Banking exclusion
60,000 rural people live more than 15 km from a bank. Depositing or withdrawing money costs a day's work plus transport. Money sleeps under the mattress, exposed to theft and erosion; no financial history is built, so no formal credit is ever accessible.
2. Food crops sold at a loss
40% of food crops are sold below their value. With no storage, no processing and no direct access to urban or diaspora markets, farmers sell to the first middleman, at the imposed price, often on harvest day — when prices are lowest.
3. Youth dropping out of school
Nearly 1,000 young people leave school every year in the area, for lack of means or prospects. Without local vocational training, they swell Abidjan's informal economy — or remain idle, lost to farming and to everything else.
4. Land sold to survive
When school fees, illness or a family shock demand immediate cash, land is the only liquid asset. Every plot sold permanently impoverishes a family and weakens the village's land sovereignty. It is the most irreversible of the five crises.
5. No secure savings
80% of rural households have no secure savings. Informal tontines exist, but with no traceability, no legal protection and no bridge towards productive credit. The slightest crisis turns into a catastrophe.