Religious radicalism in Côte d’Ivoire has not, for the moment, reached the scale seen elsewhere in the region. However, the country is not immune to the phenomenon. One example is the influence that Pentecostalists had on the hardline posture adopted by the former regime of Laurent Gbagbo during the 2010-11 post-electoral crisis. The existence of a Wahhabi Islam current in the country, together with the adhesion of the great majority of Lebanese living in Côte d’Ivoire to the Hezbollah movement in the Middle East, further underline the need to be increasingly vigilant on this issue.

Contributor: William Assanvo, Senior Researcher, Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, ISS-Dakar

This report was made possible with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Humanity United and the government of the Netherlands. The ISS is also grateful for the support of the members of the ISS Partnership Forum: the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the USA.