Alassane Ouattara

About

Alassane Dramane Ouattara (; French pronunciation: [alasan wataʁa]; born 1 January 1942) is an Ivorian politician and economist who has been President of Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) since 2010. An economist by profession, he worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Central Bank of West African States (French: Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, BCEAO), and was the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire from November 1990 to December 1993, appointed to that post by then-President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Ouattara became the president of the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), an Ivorian political party, in 1999.

== Early and personal life ==
Ouattara was born on 1 January 1942, in Dimbokro in Cote d’Ivoire He is a descendant on his father’s side from Sekou Ouattara and the Muslim rulers of the Kong Empire—also known as the Wattara (Ouattarra) Empire. Ouattara is Muslim and is a member of the Dyula people. He received a B.Sc. in Business Administration in 1965 from the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ouattara then obtained both his M.A. in economics in 1967 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1972 from the University of…