First Joint Mission of the ISCOs in Ghana reinforces relationship with local stakeholders

公开讨论经济挑战

During the mission, the ISCO secretariats had a meeting with both the management team of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) as well as the Côte d’Ivoire – Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI) which was set up last year to achieve remunerative prices and improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers. In both meetings, the unfavorable development of low cocoa prices took center stage. While Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire introduced in 2019 a Living Income Differential (LID) to increase cocoa prices, this system did not generate the desired impact. The Ghanaian and Ivorian trade boards and the CIGCI claim that many large companies have negated the LID’s value by forcing down a different premium, the origin differential.

ISCO秘书处欢迎建立CIGCI，并将寻求支持最近宣布的经济协议

ISCO秘书处一致认为，低价对该计划的生活收入目标构成了严重威胁。因此，ISCO秘书处欢迎建立CIGCI，并将寻求支持最近宣布的经济协议。作为基于市场的举措，ISCO的旨在更多地专注于解决采购和商业实践，并提高其成员的透明度，以确保这些成员可以支持共同的可持续性野心。

Defining complementarity between producing & consuming country initiatives

The ISCOs aim to avoid duplication of efforts and build on existing initiatives in the cocoa sector. In that light, the ISCO secretariats then met with the coordinators from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, facilitators (IDH & WCF) and technical working group leads of the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI). The conclusion of the meeting was that CFI and the ISCOs should stay in close contact, communicating transparently with each other and building on each other in order to increase impact and avoid double work. Financing was put forward as a concrete way in which the ISCOs could support the CFI. Furthermore, both parties saw opportunities in the harmonization of monitoring frameworks. The representatives from both CFI and the ISCOs acknowledged that they want in the future to further define the areas of complementarity between origin and market initiatives.

ISCO将继续与生产国家计划进行交流，寻求互补性并创造效率

The ISCOs also had a meeting with the Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform with the objective to learn more about each other and to identify possibilities for a stronger collaboration. Through advocacy, this platform is influencing policies and programmes to put the well-being of cocoa farmers and their families central. Recommendations to the ISCOs were to create opportunities for farmer voices to be heard in events and working groups and to work on more transparency in the sector. Lastly, the ISCOs set up a Child Labour Meeting to provide an opportunity for an open and frank exchange between the private and public sector on the alignment of activities, interoperability of monitoring and reporting mechanisms and possibilities to set up catalyst funding.

Innovative interventions to increase farmers incomes and preserve biodiversity

在为期两天的实地考察中，ISCO秘书处参观了创新的现场项目，并有机会与所涉可可农民进行交流。

ISCO秘书处首先参观了路！Lidl，Rikolto，Fairtrade Africa和Kuapa Kokoo的项目。通过支付保费，村庄储蓄和贷款协会的设置（VSLAS），生产力提高和多元化活动，该项目为所涉及的可可农民的生计带来了重大改善。走了！现在，巧克力正在不同市场的数千家商店中出售。大约三年前在比利时的一个小型项目开始，支持40名农民，现在已经成长为为2000多家农户带来具体福利。

The visit of the premises and chocolate factory of Fairafric close to Suhum gave insights into the manufacturing of organic chocolate. Fairafric’s mission is to ‘decolonize chocolate’ by shifting the entire organic chocolate value chain to cocoa origin countries. At this point 87 people have a job at the Fairafric factory and 2000 organic cocoa farmers are involved. The company hopes to expand, increasing their impact on cocoa farmers and creating further job employment in the Suhum region. Both the Way to Go! and Fairafric teams stressed the importance of the ISCOs’ work on transforming markets and creating a demand for sustainable cocoa for projects like these to succeed.

ISCO承认，增加农民收入对于应对可可群的挑战至关重要

在访问加纳可可研究所（CRIG）期间，ISCO访问了该机构的动态农林业（DAF）地块，受到Sankofa Agroforestry项目的启发，该项目得到了可持续可可的瑞士平台的支持。除了对环境和生物多样性产生积极影响外，DAF的实施具有巨大的潜力，可以增加农民的收入并提高其对市场和生产风险的韧性。关键问题是如何在极端贫困和没有投资能力的情况下实施这些系统。

请求可可行业的透明度和开放知识交流

In almost all exchanges had during the mission, transparency from the side of both companies and government was mentioned as a point for improvement. As such, the ISCOs and CIGCI agreed that more transparency will help public and private stakeholders better understand the current cocoa pricing challenges and work towards a solution. Furthermore, in the field of traceability, there is a need for more transparency on existing private and public traceability systems to avoid duplication of efforts and investments.

ISCO呼吁提高公共部门和私营部门的透明度，以更好地理解和应对可可行业的挑战

作为他们提高价值链透明度并促进生产和消费国家之间的知识交流的努力的一部分，ISCO通过可可（Alico）的生活收入联盟（Alico）来支持共同的家庭研究。加纳可可研究所将为这项研究做出贡献。根据Cocobod的要求，ISCO将确保开发的方法和数据收集对本地上下文做出响应。