Ghana is proactively preparing for anticipated changes that will reshape sustainable practices in the cocoa sector.
In collaboration with the International Trade Centre (ITC), Ghana’s Cocoa Board, the European Union (EU), the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), and ISEAL, a workshop was conducted in Accra on November 23.
The workshop addressed the impact of the EU CS3D on stakeholders in Ghana’s Cocoa value chain and provided insights on navigating the impending changes.
The EU’s approval of a directive mandates companies to conduct sustainability due diligence across their supply chains. This directive requires businesses to establish systems for identifying, preventing, and mitigating environmental and social risks, encompassing both a company’s operations and its sourcing model.
The workshop focused on how stakeholders in Ghana’s cocoa sector can adapt to these forthcoming changes.
Dr. Ebenezer Owusu, Deputy Chief Executive of Agronomy and Control at COCOBOD, acknowledged the challenges posed by illegal mining to the project. Despite these challenges, he expressed hope that Ghana could successfully complete the pilot by March 2024.
“The illegal mining agents talk to the farmers. I want to give you say five thousand cedis. Give this area of your farm to me to use for galamsey. They need money so some of these farmers will go for it without thinking that if they leave that land and harvest their Cocoa, within 3 or 4 years, they will get more than that.
National Program Coordinator for Green and Inclusive Value Chains, Mr. Larry Attipoe, told reporters outside the workshop that the action will assist farmers in exporting their produce via the EU.
“The project is to ensure that value chain have the information. Secondly that we start to prepare by asking how we ensure we are complying with human rights regulations and also ensure that we are respecting the environment in our value chain,” he said.
For his part, the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana , HE Jeroen Verheul said “Cocoa is a very important product in the trade between Netherlands and Ghana and the EU regulations we are discussing here have strong impact on the way we trade Cocoa.
What we want to achieve with this workshop is to enhance collaborations between all the different persons involved in the value chain of cocoa and chocolate.”
The stakeholder workshop, themed ‘Ghana’s Experience, Preparation, and Challenges Towards Meeting the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D),’ was organized in collaboration with the Ghana Cocoa Board, OACPS, ISEAL, and the EU’s Directorate General for International Partnerships (EU-DG INTPA). The workshop received substantial support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF V) program.
In line with pilot programs on EUCS3D accompanying measures under ITC’s guidance, the workshop aimed to enhance collaboration between buyers and value chain partners.
These programs, focusing on the implementation of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence sustainably, emphasize a bottom-up approach that amplifies the voices of small farmers, processing operations, and consumer-facing companies.
The collaboration is co-financed by OACPS, the EU, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and implemented in partnership with the International Coffee Organization (ICO).
Since the unveiling of the proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CS3D) in February 2022, Ghanaian stakeholders have been actively considering how to operationalize its requirements.
The Ghana Cocoa Board, in partnership with ITC’s Alliances for Action sustainable agribusiness initiative, has been leading discussions, organizing training sessions, conducting readiness assessments, and seeking feedback to formulate a comprehensive action plan.