Fairtrade West Africa Cocoa Program Monitoring Report, First Edition

Fairtrade launched the West Africa Cocoa Programme in 2016, seeking to build strong and viable Fairtrade small-scale producer organizations that are responsive to their members’ and business partners’ needs. Well-managed and democratically run producer organizations are better placed to build long-term relationships with commercial partners, which in turn leads to sustained access to Fairtrade markets that will play a role in increasing farmer household incomes and progressing towards living incomes.

The West Africa Cocoa Programme provides training, coaching and advisory support to the more than 230 Fairtrade certified cocoa cooperatives in West Africa, and their farmer members. This report, the first of its kind for the program, describes findings based on Fairtrade audit data, as well as cooperative management and farmer member surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019.

The report focuses on data from a sub-set of around 30 Ivorian cooperatives that received an intensive and individualized package of services based on their specific needs, including additional trainings on governance, financial management, good agricultural practices, occupational health and safety, gender rights, income or crop diversification, and more.