Cocoa sector: CNS and the Cocoa-coffee Council implement reforms to prevent child labor

The National Oversight Committee of Actions for the Fight against Trafficking, Exploitation and Child Labour (CNS), in partnership with the Cocoa-coffee Council , has launched a three-day workshop aimed at strengthening the technical capacities of national players working to address child labor issues in cocoa production. The event takes place from July 30 to August 1, 2024 at a hotel complex in Grand-Bassam.

The opening ceremony of this important workshop took place this Tuesday, July 30, 2024 in Grand-Bassam, in the presence of Mrs. Yao Patricia Sylvie, Director of Cabinet to the First Lady and Executive Secretary of the CNS, Mr. Aubin Tapé Gnoleba, Director of Cabinet representing the Minister of Employment and Social Protection, and Chairman of the Interministerial Committee to Fight Trafficking, Exploitation and Child Labour (CIM), and Dr N'Goran Koffi, Deputy Managing Director representing the Managing Director of the Cocoa-coffee Council.

The main objective of this workshop is to meet the requirements of European Union regulations on the sustainability of raw material supply chains. Over the course of 3 days, national experts will model and operationalize a social traceability system for cocoa. This initiative is all the more crucial as it will ensure that cocoa produced in Côte d'Ivoire complies with international standards of social sustainability, particularly with regard to the elimination of child labor. Participants will have the opportunity to update the roadmap for child labor verifiers, and to familiarize themselves with the best practices and technical tools needed to improve the traceability and social sustainability of Côte d'Ivoire cocoa.

Mrs Yao Patricia Sylvie, Director of Cabinet of the First Lady and Executive Secretary of the CNS, presented the importance for Côte d'Ivoire to meet the requirements of European Union regulations on the sustainability of raw material supply chains. Ms Yao Patricia Sylvie explained the importance of cocoa farming to the Ivorian economy. According to Ms Yao Patricia Sylvie, over a million men and women across the country grow cocoa, and over six million people live directly from cocoa cultivation, which represents some 20% of the Ivorian population. Moreover, Côte d'Ivoire alone supplies over 44% of the world's cocoa production, according to ICCO data for the 2022/2023 cocoa year, ahead of Ghana, which produced 14% of the world's supply, and Ecuador, 9%. 67% of Ivorian cocoa is exported to European Union countries and 14% to the United States.

“Cocoa's predominant role in our country's national economy means that any measure aimed at banning imports of this product to the European and American markets would have serious consequences on the lives of our cocoa-producing parents and their families, who are already vulnerable due to their low incomes and low resilience to economic shocks. However, it has to be said that for many years now, Côte d'Ivoire has been facing recurrent threats of embargoes on its cocoa,based on the fact that children are involved in child labor in cocoa production”, declared Mrs Yao Patricia Sylvie. Côte d'Ivoire's efforts have also helped to curb the phenomenon. “Thanks to all these efforts, the national child labor prevalence rate has been falling since 2012. Indeed, it has fallen from 39% in 2012, to 31.3% in 2016 and to 21.6% in 2021, according to a comparison of data from the 2012 and 2016 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, and the 2021 Demographic and Health Survey. In the specific cocoa sector, according to the 2019 NORC study by the University of Chicago, this drop is around 32% in communities where remediation actions have been carried out,” revealed Mrs Yao Patricia Sylvie.

However, despite these efforts, threats continue to loom over the country. The threat of sanctions and restrictions on Ivorian cocoa has become increasingly worrying, with European Union regulations banning products derived from deforestation and forced labor from the EU market. According to Ms. Yao Patricia Sylvie, these include Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 31, 2023, on the import into the European Union of products associated with deforestation and forest degradation, the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the duty of care of companies with regard to sustainability, and the draft regulation on the banning of products derived from forced labor on European Union markets. For Ms. Yao Patricia Sylvie, the challenge of this workshop is no longer to suffer these threats of embargo and ban on cocoa, but to prevent and anticipate them, and even annihilate them, by putting in place robust, operational and reliable mechanisms to prevent and eliminate child labor from the cocoa supply chain in the country.

Mr. Aubin Tapé Gnoleba, Cabinet Director representing the Minister of Employment and Social Protection, and Chairman of the Comité Interministériel de lutte contre la Traite, l'Exploitation et le Travail des Enfants (CIM), also stressed the importance of this workshop. Dr N'Goran Koffi, Deputy General Manager representing the General Manager of the Cocoa-coffee Council, agreed on that.

Mr. Youssouf N'Diori, Country Director of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), maintained that this workshop represents a hope for a synergy of efforts between national players in the remediation of child labor in the cocoa production chain.

The workshop is part of ongoing efforts by the Ivorian government and its partners to combat child labor and promote sustainable and ethical farming practices in the cocoa value chain.