The Africa Report

A man cuts a cocoa pod from a tree on a plantation in Toumodi, Côte d'Ivoire 13 October 2018. 

Rare is the international business conference that can claim to have midwifed a new geopolitical strategy.

But that is what happened when Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Dramane Ouattara met Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan in March 2016.

Asked how their countries could cooperate more closely, using their production of 70% of the world’s cocoa as a bargaining point with the multinational chocolate companies, the two presidents smiled knowingly. “That is exactly what we’re doing,” said President Ouattara.

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