ICI has been invited by the Cadbury Company to join the international board of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership. This partnership which in the first instance will be implemented in Ghana and India, brings together government, local and international NGO’s to work with Cadbury as they invest in improving cocoa growing communities. ICI plays a technical advisory role given that the elimination of child labour has been adopted as a cross-cutting theme and that this programme seeks to contribute to thriving cocoa growing communities.

The Cadbury Cocoa Partnership – supporting thriving rural cocoa communities

• In 2008, the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership was established, committing £45 million into cocoa farming in Ghana, India, South-East Asia and the Caribbean, with the overarching objective of supporting sustainable cocoa communities and improving the lives of half a million cocoa farmers and their families by 2018. 

• The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) sits on the international board of this partnership alongside the UNDP, Anti Slavery International and Cadbury members to guide the vision and programme implementation.

• In Ghana, a community-centred governance structure has been set up in partnership with UNDP, the Government of Ghana, local trade union experts and our partners CARE, VSO and World Vision.  Work has begun in 100 Cocoa Partnership communities – working with our partners to write tailored Community Action Plans that enable villages to identify and meet their needs.

• As well as community-focused initiatives, the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership also seeks to support broader national efforts, for example to improve the wider environment, improve labour standards and in particular the national objective in Ghana to eliminate worst forms of child labour from cocoa production.

• In March 2009, we added a trade dimension to the programme when Cadbury announced a move to Fairtrade for the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand in the UK and Ireland.  As well as sourcing from the existing Fairtrade co-operative in Ghana, Cadbury is working with the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation and the Fairtrade Foundation to help the 100 Cocoa Partnership communities be able to benefit from Fairtrade-certification.  In August 2009, Cadbury announced that Cadbury Dairy Milk in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan will receive Fairtrade-certification in 2010.

Speaking at a conference in the UK last month (September 2009), Chief Executive, Todd Stitzer said:
“We established the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership from an increasing realisation that we needed to be much more active – right across the economic, social and environmental aspects of cocoa farmers’ lives.  When I visited Ghana earlier this year, and listened to the worries of the farmers that I met, it made me realise that, even more than the conversations in the boardroom, we needed to support our farmers.  This fits with our ‘performance-driven, values-led’ way of doing business.  Without farmers like these, there are no cocoa beans.  And quite simply, if there are no beans, there are no bars.

With our 200 years of heritage built on values that led the Cadbury brothers to help found a whole new cocoa industry in Ghana at the beginning of the 20th century, I’m proud that, through the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, we can help to support thriving cocoa communities.”