Fairtrade West Africa Cocoa Programme Monitoring Report, Third Edition

The Fairtrade West Africa Cocoa Programme seeks to build strong and resilient small-scale producer organisations (SPOs) that are responsive to their members’ and their business partners’ needs. Implemented by Fairtrade Africa and supported by Fairtrade International, the programme's main interventions are trainings, coaching and advisory and technical support for SPOs, and peer-to-peer learning. In 2022, nearly 40,000 farmers - 30 percent of them women – across 243 producer organisations underwent training, an increase of nearly 75 percent on the previous year. At the highest intensity support level (out of four levels plus "post-graduate"), training topics included Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), climate change, child labour, setting up Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Internal Management Systems (IMS), governance, and membership engagement. From the foreword: "Our WACP Monitoring Report, Third Edition continues to show good progress in achieving the outcomes in our Theory of Change. As we continue our work in 2023 and beyond, we will be working with SPOs, their members and commercial partners to implement our new Fairtrade Cocoa Standard published at the end of 2022. The Fairtrade Cocoa Standard aligns well with upcoming regulation in the European Union where, including countries adjacent to the EU, the majority of Fairtrade cocoa is sold. (...) Fairtrade will continue to work with SPOs and their members to build democratic, transparent and participative organisations. The WACP aims for SPOs and their members to embrace the principles of economic, environmental and social sustainability in cocoa production and community life. However, this cannot be achieved by SPOs, their members and Fairtrade in isolation. The rest of the cocoa sector needs to step up with long-term contracts and fair prices. We are here to facilitate that, and we can do that with all stakeholders in the chain. We are, therefore, calling on all stakeholders who have the interests of the producers at heart to come on board to push this agenda." -- Isaac H. Tongola, Executive Director, Fairtrade Africa The English version of the report is available by clicking on the Download button below. The French version is listed under Additional Languages below.