Looking back on 2024, I recall another productive year of championing human rights and child protection, alongside our members and partners, building on the goals set out in our Strategy. We continued to enhance our impact and expand our reach across the cocoa sector and thanks to the efforts of the collective, ICI and its members covered 1.17 million cocoa-farming households across West Africa with systems designed to prevent and address child labour. Last year also saw significant advances in policy development, and while certain international frameworks, such as the Corporate Sustainability
In many ways, the past year has forced reflection across the sector. Towards the end of 2023, cocoa prices were already rising linked to supply shortages – a trend that has intensified significantly in the first part of 2024. While increased prices are a good thing for cocoa farmers, the bad harvests in West Africa coupled with higher costs of living and of production actually exacerbate farmer vulnerabilities in the short term, highlighting the need to redouble efforts to support cocoa farming families. At the same time, discussions around mandatory human rights due diligence have evolved
Reflecting back on 2022, we are proud of our actions to prevent and address child labour and forced labour in West Africa. While much remains to be done, we have continued to learn, to innovate and test new approaches, to build capacity and to advocate for increased implementation, which will allow us to take our work even further in cocoa-growing communities. ICI's Annual Report 2022 is presents a compilation of the work we've done, scaling up action in cocoa-growing communities in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana for impact and lasting change.
