"Côte d’Ivoire seeks a development strategy to reach middle-income status--a daunting challenge that would require annual growth rates averaging 10 percent over the next 13 years. Global experience of both developed and emerging economies shows that GDP per capita rises with increasing urbanization. Yet Côte d’Ivoire’s economy is underperforming relative to its level of urbanization, with an urban population at 50 percent and a GNI per capita of $1,450 in 2013. Indeed, urbanization has been negatively correlated with income per capita since the late 1970s, and poverty has been increasing.
Well-managed urbanization will be critical to meet challenges of moving to middle-income-country status. However urbanization is not just about development of a single city within a country. In fact, a country’s cities can be treated as a portfolio of assets, each differentiated by characteristics that include size, location, and density of settlements.
Drawing on the findings of the World Dev
