I had a look at the evolution of the ivorian budget and GDP since the 2010/2011 crisis:
| Ivory Coast | Bn EUR | ||||
| Poplation Mn | Debt as % of GDP | GDP Bn EUR | Year | Total Budget | Tax and fee revenue |
| 24.9 | 46.0 | 39.4 | 2018 est. | 10.3 | 6.3 |
| 24.3 | 45.9 | 36.0 | 2017 | 9.8 | 5.8 |
| 23.7 | 44.0 | 32.1 | 2016 | 9.4 | 5.5 |
| 23.1 | 44.8 | 28.6 | 2015 | 7.9 | 4.7 |
| 22.5 | 39.0 | 25.7 | 2014 | 6.7 | 3.9 |
| 22.0 | 34.2 | 23.5 | 2013 | 5.9 | 3.7 |
| 21.4 | 33.7 | 2012 | 4.9 | 3.4 | |
| 20.9 | 69.9 | 2011 | 4.7 | 2.3 | |
| 20.4 | 66.4 | 2010 | 4.4 | 2.8 |
Overall it’s looking quite good. GDP and revenues are increasing much faster than the population, and debt seems stable even if it’s creeping up slowly. And while GDP is always a somewhat estimated figure with a margin of error, actual tax revenues is a hard figure and matches the GDP quite well.
The gap between total budget and revenue is explained by debt issuance, and donor funding. For 2018, the 4Bn gap is composed of 2Bn debt issuance, 0.6Bn budget support, 1.2Bn project specific loans (a big chunk from France for the Abidjan metro, and from China for hydro-electric dams and stuff I presume) and 0.2Bn project specific gifts.
More developed countries don’t have such big gaps, just some percentage points deficit spending. Here are the corresponding figures for Ireland in 2016 with a population of about 1/5 of the Ivory Coast:
| Ireland | Bn EUR | ||||
| Poplation Mn | Debt as % of GDP | GDP Bn EUR | Year | Total Budget | Tax and other revenue |
| 4.77 | 75.4 | 254 | 2016 | 63 | 61.9 |
Finally a relevant question is how much of the total budget goes into the personal pockets of politicians and public sector employees. I’d do a rough guess here of 2% – 10% for the Ivory Coast and 0.01% – 0.2% for Ireland.
Sources:
Ivory Coast budget and GDP, government website “Budget de l’etat pour l’annee 2018”:
Click to access 09-rapport_de_presentation_2018.pdf
Debt percentage, IMF debt sustainability analysis Nov 2017:
Click to access dsacr17372.pdf
Population:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/cote-d-ivoire-population/
Ireland budget, 2016:
Click to access Budget%202017%20-%20Full%20document.pdf
Hotel Ivory 