• 86.5% of children are subjected to violent discipline from an early age (UNICEF – MICS-5)
• 46.3% of Ivory Coast’s population lives below the national poverty line (UNICEF)
• More than a third of 15-29 year-olds (35.7%) are neither in school, nor in employment, nor in training. (internal source)
• Around 15,000 children on the streets (UNICEF)

Background information

In Ivory Coast, 10 million people live below the poverty line, i.e. over a third of the population. The country has a young population, with almost 5.5 million teenagers, 20% of the total population. But youth unemployment remains very high, at 25%. Poverty rates are particularly high in the Tchologo and Poro regions (northern of Ivory Coast), with 65.6% and 51.6% of the population respectively, compared with 46.3% at national level, with marked socio-economic and gender inequalities. Indeed, in Ivory Coast, social and economic inequalities, as well as inequalities between men and women, are persistent and geographically marked, particularly in the areas of monetary poverty, food security, education and access to employment. Ivory Coast faces major challenges in terms of education. According to the United Nations, 1.6 million children are out of school, and only 10% of children have access to pre-school.

Intervention objectives

Currently, Asmae is providing technical and financial support to its partners on 2 projects aimed at improving access to and quality of early childhood services and interventions in highly vulnerable areas of northern Ivory Coast. Its objectives in the field of early childhood protection and education, as well as in supporting adolescence, are manifold:

• Identify children in need and refer them to protection and psychosocial support structures.
• Strengthen access to early childhood development activities and protection services through early intervention.
• Raise community awareness and identify children in vulnerable or at-risk situations (child victims of violence, children from extremely vulnerable families, malnourished children, disabled children, etc.) through early intervention to improve access to appropriate protection and early childhood development services.

PEACE — Protecting Children Affected by Conflict or Exclusion 

Project start date: June 2023

Project duration: 2 years

Beneficiaries: Children aged 0 to 6 in highly vulnerable situations, Families of accompanied children, Early childhood professionals from the above-mentioned structures

J2A (Jeunesses Actrices de leur Avenir, or “young people taking charge of their futures”)

Project start date: November 2023

Project duration: 3 years

Beneficiaries: Young women and men in precarious situations