Leadership Quote by Alassane Ouattara

Ouattara’s line is doing two jobs at once: selling an idea and selling a track record. The idea is the familiar “good governance breeds growth” thesis, pitched as common sense rather than ideology. The track record is more pointed: a promise that Ivory Coast’s development story is inseparable from his brand of stability-first, market-friendly statecraft.

The phrasing “go hand in hand” is diplomatic glue. It smooths over the inconvenient fact that plenty of countries have grown under tightly managed politics, and that democracies can stall. That’s the subtext: he’s not debating political theory, he’s staking out legitimacy. After years in which Ivorian politics has been defined by contested elections, identity disputes, and post-crisis reconstruction, “democracy” functions less as a romantic ideal and more as an insurance policy against relapse into chaos. “Resilient” is the keyword of the post-conflict era: the economy should keep moving even when politics heats up.

“Empowering our citizens” sounds participatory, but it also quietly reframes empowerment as a state-led development program: jobs, services, infrastructure, investment. “Opportunities for all” gestures toward inclusion in a country where the question of who counts as fully belonging has historically been combustible. It’s a rhetorical counterweight to the old politics of exclusion, and a bid to reassure external audiences (donors, investors, regional partners) that the social contract is expanding, not narrowing.

The intent, then, is to fuse democracy with growth so tightly that criticism of one can be read as sabotage of the other. It’s an argument for patience, continuity, and a particular model of progress: legitimacy measured not just at the ballot box, but in roads built, incomes raised, and crises avoided.