The Eliminating Child Labor in Cocoa – ECLIC project, funded by the United States Department of Labor and implemented by the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), has been launched by the First Lady of Côte d’Ivoire, president of the National Surveillance Committee (CNS). Madame Ouattara was represented at the launching ceremony by the Minister of Labour and Social Protection Mr Moussa Dosso, who is also President of the Inter-ministerial Committee against child trafficking and exploitation and child labour. The project extends over a period of 4 years (from November 2015 to November 2019).
The ECLIC project will enable 50 cocoa-farming communities in Côte d’Ivoire to devise and implement Community Action Plans (CAPs) to fight against child labour. In these communities 5,450 vulnerable children, engaged in or running the risk of being engaged in child labour, will be helped. They will receive various forms of support, social benefits and/or educational aid. The project will also target 1,500 vulnerable households to promote sustainable means of subsistence.
For Mme Dominique Ouattara, First Lady of Côte d’Ivoire and president of the CNS, “ECLIC is the fruit of close collaboration between the United States Government (technical and financial partner), ICI (the executive agency) and the Government of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, through the CNS and the CIM which have provided multiple support from the stage of drafting the project to that of obtaining its funding by the American Government”. She added that she was therefore pleased to launch this project, which contributes to the implementation of the Côte d’Ivoire Government’s new 2015-2017 action plan to fight against child labour and thus represents a further step towards the emergence of a Côte d’Ivoire that is free from this blight.
According to Mme Euphrasie Aka, regional representative for West and Central Africa and National Coordinator of the Foundation, ICI “will make it a point of honour to implement the ECLIC project, respecting the required standards”. It is a challenge for ICI, but also a promise to make every effort to ensure that it succeeds. “For ICI, ECLIC must be an overture to the implementation of many more large-scale projects, in order to make a significant impact on the everyday lives of children in the cocoa-growing communities,” she declared.
On 26 April this year, ICI signed a Partnership Agreement with the National Surveillance Committee (CNS), whose president is the First Lady of Côte d’Ivoire, to promote child protection in the Ivorian cocoa sector. The Agreement expands the existing mutual support in the priority areas of the Ivorian government’s 2015-2017 National Action Plan for the elimination of child labour, including in particular the mapping of educational facilities built by the cocoa industrialists, the building and rehabilitation of basic social infrastructure, and the reinforcement and extension of the National Child Labour Monitoring System in Côte d’Ivoire (SOSTECI).
Selected media coverage of the ECLIC launch:
Agence Ivoirienne de Presse: La Fondation ICI va lancer le projet ECLIC
Agence Ivoirienne de Presse: La Fondation ICI appelle à des partenariats multiples pour financer ses opérations
Abidjan.net: La Fondation ICI va lancer le projet ECLIC
Africa News Hub: La Fondation ICI sollicite des partenaires pour le financement de ses opérations