Since 2015, the International Cocoa Initiative has been implementing its ‘core’ community development programme in 75 cocoa-growing communities: 46 in Côte d’Ivoire and 29 in Ghana. The programme set up and supported community groups to put in place a range of activities focused on child protection, education, women’s empowerment and income-generation.
ICI commissioned this evaluation in January 2019. It examines progress made since 2015 and aims to answer the question: to what extent are cocoa-growing communities more protective of children and their rights?
The evaluation was conducted by the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development (BIRD) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. It measures impact by comparing changes in ICI-supported communities between 2015 and 2018 with changes in a similar set of non-assisted communities. These quantitative findings are complemented by qualitative data collected by the research team.
