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Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people. (source) About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day. (source) About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation. (source) According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world. (source) The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years. (source)
Life expectancy in Côte d'Ivoire is about 52 years, and infant mortality is about 68 per thousand.
Close ties to France since independence in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment made Côte d'Ivoire one of the most prosperous of the tropical African states, but did not protect it from political turmoil.
The northern government has yet to exert control over the northern regions and tensions remain high between Gbagbo and opposition leaders. Several thousand French and West African troops, and a moderately-sized United Nations contingent, remain in Côte d'Ivoire to maintain peace and facilitate the disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation process.
Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections were held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 Nov. Laurent Gbagbo, as president, ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara. On 2 Dec, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. The majority of the rest of the world's governments supported that declaration, but the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected it and then announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."
There has been an armed insurgency ever since, with pro-Ouattara forces on the one side and pro-Gbagbo forces on the other. By 1 Apr 2011, pro-Ouattara forces had penetrated Abidjan and street-level combat between the two sides was occurring. Most governments are still advising their citizens against travel to the country.
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