The International Cocoa Initiative was founded in 2002 as a multi-stakeholder initiative emerging from the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa supply chain.
ICI’s founding objective was to work with the cocoa sector and cocoa-growing communities to address child labour and increase child protection. We began operating on the ground in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in 2007, implementing a community development approach in cocoa-growing communities. Working with member companies and civil society organisations, we also adapted Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems for the cocoa supply chain from 2012 onwards. Since then, our work has expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of farming families across Ghana, in Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.
Today, our members and partners are part of an important collective effort working to address and prevent child labour and forced labour in the cocoa supply chain. They include civil society, the cocoa industry, international organisations, farming cooperatives, governments, regional bodies, and more. Our unique ability to bring these different stakeholders together makes us a powerful actor for change within the sector and beyond.