Local authorities want to increase the mobilization of their own resources for sustainable local development. According to Amoi Sanhou, Deputy Director General of Decentralization and Local Development at the Ministry of Interior and Security, the main challenge lies in their ability to raise funds through the acquisition of internal tools and techniques, especially since less than 10% of the resources of these entities come from their own mobilization, with the rest being provided by the State.
To address this low financial autonomy, the Project to Support the Mobilization of Internal Resources of Local Authorities (PAMRI), initiated by Expertise France, is supporting a sample of around twenty local authorities – including regions, municipalities, and the Senate – in improving their recovery procedures, in partnership with the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Ivory Coast (UVICOCI) and the General Directorate of Local Development (DGDDL) of the Ministry of Interior and Security.
On the budget side, the Ivorian State injects over $666.67 million into the financing of local authorities, with an annual increase in contributions reaching $833.33 million over the past three years. Although these amounts are considered below the WAEMU directives, Ladji Konaré, Director of Economic and Financial Oversight at the DGDDL, specifies that in 2026, only $55 million in own-source revenues were mobilized for a group of 10 municipalities, compared to the $783.33 million paid by the State. These figures confirm a structural dependence in which the share of autonomous revenues remains marginal.
An analysis of revenue structure for the year 2024 reveals that own-source revenues accounted for only 13.83% of the total budget of local authorities. The rest of the funding consisted of tax shares, at 47.18%, and state subsidies, at 38.99%. This imbalance highlights the need for a reform of collection mechanisms to allow local elected officials to have more direct and significant financial levers for the development of their territories.
Furthermore, the current legal framework, governed by the 2020 law and its article 100, is the subject of requests for revision from local authorities. This text is criticized for the bureaucratic burdens it generates, including the obligation to make the revenues collected available to the Treasury and the Tax Services. In order to comply with the WAEMU community directives, a legislative evolution is requested to remove barriers to the real autonomy of the regions and municipalities of Ivory Coast.
