Towards child labour free cocoa growing communities in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana through an integrated area based approach

Child labour across West Africa is largely concentrated in the informal economy, for the most part in agriculture. A number of socio-economic factors contribute to child labour and the movement of migrant workers and children within and between countries, including some who are trafficked or in conditions of forced labour. Since the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2001, particular attention has been paid to eliminating child labour in the cocoa supply chain in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, where, to that end, government, industry and other stakeholders have invested considerable resources through a myriad of initiatives. Those efforts have focused on supporting the withdrawal from and prevention of children from hazardous work on cocoa farms and their access to education, in recognition of the direct links between accessing quality education and eliminating child labour. Considerable progress has been made and many lessons learned. However, it is clear that the rate of decrease in the number of children engaged in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in the targeted countries is insufficient to achieve the global goal of its elimination by 2016, much less the ILO African region’s target of 2015. Hence, it is now critical to define a more comprehensive strategy that can be implemented in a more integrated manner. This project proposes an Integrated Area-Based (IAB) approach in which - recognizing that poverty and decent work deficits are among the primary root causes of child labour - eliminating child labour in cocoa growing communities is managed as a process embedded in the wider national strategies for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour, the promotion of education and decent work and the reduction of poverty. This integrated approach aims to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of IPEC interventions by creating an environment in which children do not simply shift from one hazardous sector or occupation to another, in which vulnerable families and communities are empowered to address their livelihood and economic situation and thus one of the root causes of child labour, and in which the necessary consensus at both community and national levels is generated to garner the ownership needed to support long-term change. Agriculture is a sector that presents a worldwide challenge of decent work deficits for both adults and children and in which children work long hours, often in hazardous conditions and are sometimes unable to attend school. In both Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the majority of economically active children work in agriculture, and statistics show that the majority of children working in agriculture, work in cocoa. While children working in cocoa may also be working on other crops grown in the concerned communities or even engaged in other worst forms of child labour, targeting children working in cocoa-growing communities and districts will help provide a model of how to tackle the child labour, including those working in hazardous or even forced child labour in other areas of agriculture. Interventions in this project will centre on cocoa growing communities, with child labour in cocoa production as its primary focus. Where other types of WFCL occur in the same communities, they will also be addressed. This strategy will help eliminate all WFCL in the selected cocoa-growing communities as a step towards creating cocoa-growing districts that are child labour-free. A holistic approach to the development of thriving cocoa growing communities is a requisite for sustainable change that will result in child labour free areas. That requires broad based participation in community development and sustained dialogue and cooperation between government and employers’ and workers’ organizations in order to create an environment in which the structural causes of child labour are addressed and in which all families have opportunities for decent work and diverse and sustainable livelihoods. T

Project symbol

RAF/10/54/USA

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Dakar

Start date

31/12/2010

End date

31/03/2015

Total allocation

10000000

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

9730891

Development Partners

USA, United States Department of Labor, Bureau for International Labor Affairs, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking

Country/Countries

Africa - regional

Outcomes

Child Labour