On behalf of Mondelēz International, CARE International conducted an assessment of Cocoa Life women's empowerment efforts in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

CARE’s assessment, commissioned by Mondelēz, reported the following:

  • Increased cocoa yields from giving women better access to training in Good Agricultural Practices
  • Improved financial literacy and resilience as well as increased household income, which is used to invest in agricultural inputs, hire labor and fund school tuition fees – as a result, it helps tackle one of the root causes of child labor, access to education
  • Drove more active participation in community-level decision-making bodies, such as the Community Development Committees and Community Action Planning process
  • Implemented a women extension volunteers program, instrumental in promoting access to finance, community mobilization and Good Agricultural Practices

Based on CARE’s recommendations, Cocoa Life will now work with its partners to further strengthen interventions and implement new actions to empower women across the program’s five key areas, including:

  • Evolving the Women Extension Volunteer model (or similar) in all origin countries
  • Increasing women’s access to finance, farm inputs, land ownership and membership of producer groups and cooperative
  • Promoting leadership positions as part of the Community Development Committees and Community Action Plan processes and include a floor of 30% for women representatives in the process.

You can read the full report from CARE International here.