Queen Mathilde visits Ivory Coast as an advocate of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Past fields of banana trees and palm trees as far as the eye can see, Queen Mathilde made her way from the economic capital Abidjan to Grand-Lahou on Tuesday. That city, a former slave trading port on the Gulf of Guinea, is where a river, a lagoon and the sea meet. Due to coastal erosion, the inhabitants were forced to move to a new town, eighteen kilometers inland, in 1973, which they also named Grand-Lahou. Today, a village remains of the original city, Lahou-Kpanda.
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Queen Mathilde traveled by boat to that fishing village. There a guard of honor of men and women, tirelessly singing, dancing and drumming, waited for the queen. The guard of honor led to the church, which wants to protect the village, and the former cemetery. The graves that remained had sagged or collapsed: a foreshadowing of what awaits the rest of Lahou-Kpanda if something is not done quickly to stop coastal erosion.
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The maritime contractor DEME will carry out dredging and coastal protection works in Lahou-Kpanda to stabilize the sand barrier between the lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. The works will start in May or June. The construction of mangroves and forests should also prevent coastal erosion and protect the community.
Football
On the second full day of her visit to Ivory Coast, Queen Mathilde also visited the Maimie Faitie kindergarten in Yopougon, which is made from recycled plastic bricks. To build that school and more than 500 others by the end of 2025, the Ivorian branch of UNICEF, the United Nations children’s fund, is working with the Colombian company Conceptos Plasticos.
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At the Laurent Pokou stadium in San-Pédro, she talked to former football player Bakari Kone, Olympic taikwondo champion Ruth Gbagi and other young Ivorian athletes about the role sport plays in their lives. She took a few penalties.
On Wednesday, Queen Mathilde will visit the cocoa plantation Entreprise Coopérative des Agriculteurs de Méagui and meet female entrepreneurs before flying back to Belgium in the evening.
Queen Mathilde has been an advocate of the SDGs since 2016. The seventeen goals are intended to promote sustainable economic, social and environmental development around the world. Queen Mathilde’s field visits to Ivory Coast cover thirteen SDGs, such as good health and well-being, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, responsible consumption and production, and climate action.
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