Talk:Districts of Ivory Coast

	Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Ivory Coast (assessed as Top-importance).

Status of districts

Regions of Ivory Coast claims "In 2014, the districts were abolished (but not the autonomous ones that cover the departments that are not included in any region)." However, this article doesn't mention anything like that, fr:Districts de Côte d'Ivoire claims that all districts were replaced by autonomous districts in 2014, and the census of 2021 still distinguishes autonomous districts and other districts. Could someone please update and clarify the articles, with sources? // Essin (talk) 11:40, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I found the law that the article in French mentions, and from there I managed find some more clues. Articles 47-50 are about autonomous districts, but the details are supposed to be in another law. Interestingly enough, Article 48 says that autonomous districts could be formed by either a group of regions or a group of departments, communes and subprefectures. However, the first option was only implemented in 2021 by a decree, followed by the appointment of governors and a 2022 law regulating the already created district councils. Combined with a statement by the President from 2015 ("Le chef de l’Etat a expliqué que pour l’instant, le Bas-Sassandra a été érigé depuis quatre ans en simple district, en même temps qu’une dizaine d’autres régions du pays. Mais aucune nomination de gouverneur de ces districts n’a encore été faite, en raison de la réticence des préfets de région qui craignent de perdre certaines de leurs prérogatives, a-t-il fait remarquer."), the following timeline seems plausible:

In 2011, the districts were defined, with their administration to be set up later.
Due to resistance from the regional prefects, the implementation of the district administrations stalled.
In 2014, a new law recognized the status quo, while leaving the possibility open to have districts in the future.
In 2021, this possibility was used to create autonomous districts with the same borders as the previously intended districts, soon followed by the appointment of governors and district councils.

Can someone confirm that my interpretation is correct? Essin (talk) 09:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]