{"id":41813,"date":"2026-08-07T14:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41813"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:35:23","slug":"cote-divoire-marks-66-years-of-independence","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/cote-divoire-marks-66-years-of-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"C\u00f4te d&#8217;Ivoire marks 66 Years of Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Republic of C\u00f4te d&#8217;Ivoire today commemorates 66 years of national sovereignty, marking the historic date on August 7,1960 when the West African nation formally declared its independence from France.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Led at its founding by F\u00e9lix Houphou\u00ebt-Boigny, who served as President for 33 years until 1993, the country transitioned from French West Africa to become one of the region&#8217;s most prominent economic powerhouses.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 66th anniversary sees celebrations, official state addresses, and military pageantry across key urban centres, including the political capital of Yamoussoukro and the commercial hub of Abidjan.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Since gaining independence, C\u00f4te d&#8217;Ivoire\u2019s economic growth has been heavily anchored by agriculture, particularly cocoa and coffee production. Today, the nation remains the world&#8217;s leading producer of cocoa, supplying over 40% of global output.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond agriculture, recent national priorities have focused on industrial processing, energy infrastructure expansion, and regional trade integration within the Economic Community of West African States.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41814,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-41813","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"C\u00f4te d'Ivoire commemorates 66th Independence anniversary","published_date":"2026-08-07 13:59:56","news_description":"C\u00f4te d'Ivoire commemorates 66th Independence anniversary","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41815,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41813\/revisions\/41815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}