Mayors from African nation of the Ivory Coast visit Fairfield

FAIRFIELD – A group of seven mayors from the African nation of the Ivory Coast visited Fairfield in early December to learn from the town’s success as an entrepreneurial hub in Rural America.

The visit on Dec. 5 was arranged by a nonprofit called Global Ties Iowa, sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The Ivory Coast mayors were here on a program called Agricultural Trade and Prosperity, and Fairfield was one of only two cities in the country to offer to host the mayors, the other being Charlotte, North Carolina.

Global Ties Iowa’s Executive Director Amy Alice Chastain said the delegation stopped in Cedar Rapids, Fairfield and Ottumwa during its two days in the country, and in each place, it visited business groups and agricultural technology companies.

“With Iowa being an ag state, they knew there were rich opportunities here because ultimately this group hopes to establish trade partnerships based on their experiences here,” Chastain said.

In Fairfield, the group met with Grow Fairfield, which organized a panel on how the town’s manufacturing was connected to the agricultural economy. Fairfield Sustainability Director Faith Reeves gave a presentation on local farming, food production, and women in farming, which was of special interest to the delegation since three of the seven mayors were women. Jeff Topel of John Deere was another panelist who shared his expertise. Throughout their visit, the mayoral delegation communicated with Fairfield residents through three interpreters, since the mayors all speak French.

Grow Fairfield Executive Director Ed Malloy and Fairfield Mayor Connie Boyer addressed the group, too. Malloy said the issues facing small American towns like Fairfield aren’t that different from those in the small Ivory Coast towns the mayors represent, issues like balancing property taxes and infrastructure needs, attracting businesses, and retaining young talent.

“They are in more rural areas, and their children who graduate from school go to big cities in Africa and Europe, and they wonder what they can do to keep them,” Malloy said, summarizing their discussions.

The foreign delegation took a tour of Fairfield’s industrial park and then had lunch at Addi’s Ethiopian Cuisine in the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

Malloy said Fairfield has a long history of both hosting foreign visitors and sending officials to represent the town in other countries. For instance, Fairfield was active in the Friendship Force that was founded in 1977, and Malloy went to a conference of mayors in Argentina during his tenure as Fairfield’s mayor. The Fairfield Rotary Club has an exchange program with Sweden where the two countries take turns sending two young people to the other country for a cross-cultural exchange. Chastain mentioned that Global Ties Iowa brought a different delegation to Fairfield in 2024 called the Young Trans-Atlantic Innovation Leaders. Members of that group came from Scotland, Albania and Azerbaijan.

Malloy remarked, “It’s always fun to represent Fairfield and promote Fairfield with others who are interested in international exchange. There’s a lower level of exchange as opposed to the high level of exchange that goes on between governments, and that’s getting people familiar and comfortable with each other, so that larger negotiations can go more smoothly and be more productive.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com