Côte d’Ivoire: UN facilitates book donation to bolster university library

Pressing ahead with efforts to rebuild war-damaged educational institutions in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations peacekeeping mission there today facilitated the donation of scores of books to a university library in the north.

The University of Bouaké received some 150 law-school texts delivered by the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (ONUCI) from the Societé Lexis-Nexis in Paris.

Côte d’Ivoire has been split between the rebel-held north and the Government-controlled south since 2002. Before the crisis the University of Bouaké library contained more than 15,000 titles. But during combat, the library was bombed and the entire campus was pillaged.

The University of Bouaké re-opened in April 2006 and now has some 2,500 to 3,000 books in a storage area.

The donation of a range of textbooks from “Code de Droit international des Droits de l’Homme” to “Droits des relations internationales” was the symbolic beginning of the refurbishing of the Law Library at the University of Bouaké, ONUCI said. The mission’s Chief Legal Adviser, Therese de Saint Phalle, presided over a ceremony in support of the library where speakers highlighted the importance of maintaining and developing the educational institutions in Côte d’Ivoire.