The International Cocoa Initiative promotes child protection in cocoa-growing communities. We work to ensure a better future for children and their families.
Bowaly's new education centre: "The child's place is in school and not on cocoa plantations"
Kouassi Yao Meza is 10 years old and attends Bowaly Public Primary School (Epp) in Central West Côte d'Ivoire. He's in fifth grade and happy to have a new school. A school that he does not hesitate to show to his cousins who come to visit him in Bowaly, and he promises to work well in class, to later "help parents who are farmers and produce cocoa". He smilingly confides to us...
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Quality education and drinking water: key for ensuring children have better chances in future
Quality education is a viable alternative and remedy to child labour. ICI's ECLIC project makes sure the children from 50 cocoa-growing communities have access to schooling. Funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDoL), ECLIC recently constructed schools equipped with solar panels providing access to electricity and drinking water, to the communities of Jeannotkro, G...
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IGA: ECLIC PROJECT PROVIDES EQUIPMENT TO WOMEN AND YOUTH GROUP
"It wasn’t easy for me because there were a lot of obstacles... We, the women, received a tricycle this morning and the youth received a freezer with a generator to start selling frozen fish. I'm so happy. This tricycle will allow us to earn money”. This is how Madam Zadi Valérie, a mother at-risk living in the Ayaou-kouakoukro community in Soubré, and a member of the Child Pro...
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Risk of forced labour in cocoa present in both Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire: 2018 Global Slavery Index
The Walk Free Foundation, an Australian organisation dedicated to ending contemporary slavery and human trafficking, issued the 2018 version of their "Global Slavery Index" on 19 July 2018. The index provides a country by country ranking of the number of people in modern slavery, as well as an analysis of the actions governments are taking to respond, and the factors that make...
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Lack of Education is at the Root of Youth Issues in Cocoa Growing Communities
In many places around the world, youth are presented with an array of exciting and valuable opportunities as they transition from childhood to adulthood. They might begin post-secondary education, start working their first job or volunteer in their communities. This is not the case for young people in cocoa growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire where a lack of educatio...
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Where we are working
Click the green symbols to visit the ICI core programme communities, and the yellow symbols to visit the ECLIC communities.
Cocoa News
CONFECTIONERY PRODUCTION - During the past couple of years, there has been a notable trend for businesses across the confectionery sector becoming increasingly mindful of sustainability issues. Read More
FINANCIAL AFRIK-Le Belge Michel Arrion, ex ambassadeur de l’Union européenne, est le nouveau directeur exécutif de l’ICCO, l’organisation internationale du cacao, en remplacement de l’Ivoirien Jean Marc Anga. Le nouveau directeur a été « nommé par consensus à la fin de la réunion de septembre du Conseil international du cacao, l’organe directeur de l’organisation » pour un mandat de 5 ans, indique le communiqué de l’ICCO ce 1er octobre. Read More
Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD has urged cocoa buying company’s managers to ensure that farmers are protected whiling ending instances of cheating being reported in the media. Read More
COCOBOD will be paying a lower interest rate on the syndicated loan for next year's cocoa season as compared to the interest rate being paid for this year's. Read More
Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is spear-heading the Government initiative to cut down diseased and moribund cocoa trees which has begun in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western Region. Over 11 million disease infested cocoa trees will go down in the country-wide exercise. The affected cocoa farmers will earn GHC 552.00 per hectare of their cocoa farm as compensation package. Read More
Ghana and La Cote d’Ivoire have taken a major step to tackle the spread of the Swollen Shoot Viral Diseases (CSSVD), on cocoa farms. this was done with the joint launch of a control programme in the two countries at Pillar 34, a border town in the Bia West District in Ghana. Read More
Ghanaian farmers have been cautioned against converting agro chemical bottles, particularly empty weedicide containers, for use as either drinking bottles or for domestic purposes. Read More
Ivory Coast’s Cocoa Espresso Council (CCC) has determined to public sale all of its cocoa manufacturing to exporters prematurely in an effort to set assured value all through the season for producers, CCC sources stated on Wednesday. Read More
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Cocoa Board, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has tasked employees of cocoa processing and buying companies to lead the campaign for the consumption of cocoa locally. Read More
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Cocoa Board, Joseph Boahen Aidoo has cautioned purchasing clerks of Licenced Buying Companies (LBCs) against criminally adjusting their weighing scales as a means of enriching themselves at the expense of the poor farmers. Read More
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