CARE, a humanitarian organization, and Cargill have released their latest partnership successes in a new report highlighting cocoa sustainability. 

The report details the challenges and progress that has been made in child labor prevention, diversifying income and ensuring food security and nutrition for families. 

Empowering women is also a key takeout from the report entitled “A Decade of Impact in Cocoa Communities: More than Ten Years of the CARE-Cargill Partnership.” 

One of the authors, Maria Hinson Tobin, from CARE, tells FoodIngredientsFirst: “This partnership in West Africa will continue through 2022 as part of our current three-year, women-centered She Feeds the World program – a transformative program that aims to reach more than two million people in Central America, West Africa and Indonesia.”

“As we enter our second decade of strategic partnership, CARE and Cargill will build on our programming successes to drive significant impact, creating deep, long-term positive change for women, their families and their communities.”

“Through our programming, we’ve achieved a 30 percent increase in women’s participation in household financial decision-making and an 18 percent increase in women holding leadership positions.” Hinson Tobin asserts.

Nicole Marlor, director, media relations and issues response in EMEA at Cargill, says: “At Cargill, we take the responsibility and the opportunity to act across the cocoa sector, connecting different stakeholders to drive lasting change. We will continue connect every dot in the cocoa supply chain for maximum transparency using cutting-edge digital technologies wher possible. We will continue to take a holistic look at the sustainability of cocoa and work with our partners, like CARE, towards a common cause: a thriving cocoa sector for generations to come.”

“The Cargill Cocoa Promise is our commitment to ensuring we continue to make progress towards a transparent global cocoa supply chain, to enable cocoa farmers and their communities to achieve better incomes and living standards sustainably, and to deliver a sustainable supply of cocoa and chocolate products, today and years to come,” Marlor notes.

CARE and Cargill have continued to evolve their approach over the past decade. The initial joint interventions focused on combating child labor, improving access to education, and economically empowering women. 

After this, CARE and Cargill also set out to improve access to agricultural inputs and access to financial services. Building on learnings, later programs also emphasized income diversification, improved nutrition and climate resilience. 

“Our current programs place women at the heart of our interventions because we know that with the right resources, women have the power to transform entire cocoa-growing communities. Additionally, these programs provide nutrition and social protection in times of crisis, which is especially important in light of the effects of the current COVID-19 pandemic on cocoa-growing communities,” adds Michelle Nunn, president and CEO at CARE.

West Africa is the largest producer of cocoa; Côte dIvoire and Ghana provide nearly 60 percent of the worlds cocoa. However, while cocoa smallholder farmers make up the Ivorian and Ghanaian economies backbone and contribute significantly to the global cocoa supply, many still live in poverty.