News from ICI

The International Cocoa Initiative has joined the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) as a supporting member, enabling it to take an active part in a number of working groups within the platform.

Quang Thien Imex (QTI) a supplier of agricultural products specializing in cocoa, coffee and cashew nuts, has joined the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) as a contributing partner, as part of its efforts to tackle child labour in the cocoa supply chain.

To mark the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) and its members are pledging to scale up systems that prevent and address child labour, as part of corporate human rights due diligence efforts, to cover 540,000 cocoa-growing households in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana by the end of 2021.

On 4 March, the International Cocoa Initiative, Ecom and the ECACOM and CAPO farming cooperatives jointly inaugurated two schools in cocoa-producing communities in Côte d’Ivoire. One is located in Quartier Soleil, 77 km from Soubré and 33 km from Méagui, while the other is in Sérigbangan (84 km from Méagui).

At the International Cocoa Initiative, we support our partners to empower women in cocoa communities. That’s because women have a crucial role to play in the fight against child labour. In this article we explore some of the ways that supporting women in cocoa-growing communities can be beneficial to child protection.

Cémoi, the largest French chocolate and confectionery company, has joined the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) as a Contributing Partner, joining the organization and its partners in the fight against child labour and forced labour in the cocoa supply chain.