Resources

In 2018, the International Cocoa Initiative worked to support communities, reinforce supply chains, engage with national authorities and advocate internationally for cocoa that is sustainable and free of child labour. By the end of 2018, ICI’s direct action had benefited 287,762 children, and the organisation is on course to realise its target of directly assisting 375,000 children, as part of its broader goal of improving child protection for 1 million children in cocoa growing areas by 2020. ICI also launched new innovation projects in three core areas in 2018 — quality education, expansion

Acumen partnered with Hershey to publish Cocoa Interrupted: The Role of Social Enterprise in Cocoa Sustainability. The report highlights the stories social enterprises in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire that use for-profit models to creatively and sustainably address the varied needs of cocoa-growing communities. It includes concrete recommendations for how to add social enterprise to a corporate sustainability toolkit.

Cocoa farmers face a huge number of challenges, but one lies at the root of many of them: most farmers’ incomes are simply too low. Estimates before the price of cocoa crashed between September 2016 and February 2017 suggested that the price cocoa farmers receive represents less than seven percent of the value of cocoa sold in Europe.

In late 2016, at the request of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) and two of its major private sector members, Verité researchers undertook rapid appraisal research to explore the nature of forced labour risk in the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire.

Research on forced labour has focused almost entirely on the big brand businesses at the top of the supply chain. The worksites that deploy and manage forced labour usually involve smaller and more informal business actors. They receive much less attention.