A rebound into one of Africa's fastest-growing economies

After the 2011 crisis, Côte d'Ivoire turned into one of the world's fastest-growing economies for most of the 2010s, with real GDP growth averaging close to 8% a year between 2012 and 2019 as cocoa processing capacity expanded, infrastructure spending resumed, and investor confidence returned under President Ouattara. Throughout this swing from contraction to boom, the exchange rate itself stayed completely still: Côte d'Ivoire's currency is the CFA franc, issued not by a national institution but by the regional Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) on behalf of eight West African countries, and pegged to the euro at a fixed rate of 655.957 francs per euro since 1999, a rate inherited from the franc's peg to the French franc going back to 1948. That fixed peg, backed by a French Treasury guarantee and a requirement that member states pool part of their foreign reserves at the BCEAO, meant Côte d'Ivoire's post-conflict recovery shows up entirely in growth and price data rather than in any currency chart, even as GDP growth later cooled toward 6-7% by the end of the decade amid regional security costs and the 2020 pandemic shock.