Founded in 2014, the Initiative pour le Développement communautaire et la conservation de la forêt (IDEF) is a non-profit Ivorian civil society organisation.
It works to preserve biodiversity, strengthen and enforce the regulatory framework for natural resource exploitation, defend the rights and interests of rural communities, and promote a multi-stakeholder decision-making framework.
At ICI, we know that no single actor can solve the problem of child labour on its own. Only collective action, carried out with transparency, will build a more sustainable cocoa sector in West Africa. It is this spirit of collaboration that motivated IDEF to join ICI.
Bakary Traoré, Executive Director of IDEF, explains, "At IDEF, we believe in dialogue, particularly between different stakeholders, to find sustainable solutions to complex challenges such as those facing the cocoa sector. ICI has succeeded in bringing stakeholders together to act in concert.
"That is why we want to join this framework to contribute, in our own way, to finding solutions to improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire, among other things."
Welcoming IDEF to the ICI Board, which provides governance, oversight and strategic direction for the organisation, Matthias Lange, Executive Director of ICI, said,
"We are happy to welcome IDEF, whose commitment to human rights in the cocoa sector is exemplary. We look forward to working closely together to improve the lives of the cocoa communities in which we operate."
Traoré added, “By joining ICI, we hope first and foremost to contribute our ideas to the work being done by stakeholders in this context. Even though much has been achieved, there is still work to be done to reduce and ultimately eradicate trafficking and child labour in the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire and other countries in the West Africa. We hope to contribute in our own way, alongside the other committed stakeholders within ICI."
The ICI Board now has thirteen members from the cocoa industry (chocolate makers, processors, traders and cooperatives) and ten civil society organisations. Three international organisations, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UNICEF, sit on the board as advisors, providing essential expertise and recommendations for our work.