The rise in the incidence of child labour in west African cocoa production detailed in last week's report from Tulane University is a disappointment to all those working to address the issue, including food companies. While the statistics reveal some relative improvements and give ground for optimism, Ben Cooper writes, the abiding message has to be that more must be done.
The key findings of the report from Tulane University on the prevalence of child labour in cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana will have made uncomfortable reading for food companies sourcing cocoa, as will have many of the headlines it drew, being sadly reminiscent of those the issue has attracted in the fourteen years since it first started to receive widespread public attention.
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According to Tulane's 2013/14 survey, the number of child labourers working in cocoa production across Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire increased by 21% to more than 2.1m between 2008/2009 and 2013/4, with the prevalence of child labour in cocoa production rising by 15.5%. The report also shows a rise in children carrying heavy loads, handling agro-chemicals and using sharp tools, and reporting work-related injuries.
However, to conclude from the headline figures the situation is worse than ever would be inaccurate and unfair, though anyone using the report to posit that not enough has been done would arguably be on firmer ground.
"We're encouraged to see what we're doing is having an impact but against the scale of the problem it is insufficient," says Nick Weatherill, executive director of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a multi-stakeholder organisation created in 2002 as part of the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol. The absolute numbers, Weatherill adds, are a "stark reminder of the scale of the challenge" but there are "signs of progress".
In its Synthesis and Review of the Tulane report, ICI points to the report's "positive findings", highlighting for example that relative to the increase in the cocoa-growing population, there has been a 14% decrease in the prevalence of child labour in cocoa-growing households across both countries.
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By GlobalDataHighlighting the relative improvement when demographics and market growth are taken into account is important. Nevertheless, while they may not tell the whole story the headlines are not sensationalist. Regardless of whether the Tulane report reflects progress on a relative basis, the headline figures represent real children working when they should be in school and being placed in harm's way in so doing.
Moreover, the attention that companies are now paying to cocoa supply chains – of which the work on child labour is one, albeit key, component – is borne out of rising demand and a need to ensure that the west African engine-room of global cocoa production can meet that demand. In other words, efforts over those five years arguably should have taken into account that more smallholders would be switching to cocoa cultivation and more cocoa would be produced, bringing with it a likely concomitant expansion in child labour.
When criticism is being meted out, food companies will always be a prime target. In this instance, the fact that cocoa is being sourced using child labour from impoverished smallholder communities with extremely limited economic choices to allow companies to make confectionery for children in developed countries who – and statistics on this do not lie either – already eat too much chocolate is particularly poignant and troubling.
However, food companies are not the only actors here. The Ivorian and Ghanaian governments are critical stakeholders, as are NGOs and development agencies. Thankfully, both origin governments are better placed today to play their key role, particularly if they are well supported by the private sector. For example, the Ivorian government has just announced a policy commitment to compulsory education for children under 16.
Industry engagement is also in a different place. The launch of CocoaAction last year represents a step-change in corporate engagement on the issue.
Bill Guyton, president of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), the organisation heading up CocoaAction, admits to some disappointment at the headline figures but says WCF is "not discouraged". With CocoaAction, "the industry is better poised than ever to make a significant impact on reducing child labour".
Guyton is right to be looking ahead. Whether or not the adverse publicity companies received in the wake of the Tulane findings is warranted is a value judgment but, ultimately, the unacceptably slow progress for many years since 2001 and even the disappointing figures last week are now history. The emphasis must now be on learning from past experience and building on what has been achieved.
Food companies may well have not done enough soon enough and were at times guilty of diving for cover when this unquestionably toxic issue was raised, but that cannot be said now. Guyton says WCF will be more proactive in engaging with the media, while CocoaAction itself embodies a qualitative difference and maturing of the corporate engagement on the issue, with companies investing more directly in their supply chains, while still working in partnership with NGOs and other actors.
There is also a crucial difference in that the child labour issue is now being considered within the overall sustainability challenge for cocoa of improving smallholder productivity and income, both to meet rising demand and improve farmer livelihoods. In 2001, child labour was the primary the issue of concern. It may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that now it is viewed as part of a multi-faceted challenge it has a better chance of being successfully addressed but that is most certainly the case.
Food companies are seeking a sustainable cocoa supply chain and, as Weatherill succinctly puts it, "child labour is the ultimate indicator of whether your commodity supply chain is sustainable."
Weatherill is "confident" that the 2018/2019 survey will show a decrease in absolute numbers in child labour as well as those relative to production, with CocoaAction and ICI's new five-year strategy providing the opportunity to scale up work that has produced success. However, both he and Guyton are more guarded on the possibility of reaching the target of reducing the worst forms of child labour by 70%, set out in the 2010 Framework of Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, and rightly so. That is a stretching and, most probably, unattainable goal.
Weatherill adds a further note of caution, pointing out , in spite of the scaled up engagement, ICI and CocoaAction initiatives together will only reach around 30% of cocoa-producing communities.
Furthermore, what was true for the 2008/09 – 2013/14 period will be true of the coming five years. Demand will increase and so will cocoa production. Remedial efforts have to do what they failed to do between 2009 and 2014, namely get ahead of market trends. That underlines the important role other actors have to play and, as Guyton puts it, the "global collective effort" that is required. However, after the Tulane findings companies must ask themselves whether even the US$500m investment that CocoaAction represents will be sufficient, given what they are asking of their cocoa supply chains in terms of increased capacity.
The disappointment and surprise on the part of those working closely on the child labour issue that there was not an actual decline in numbers, let alone seeing an aggregate increase, was clear. Nobody can see into the future but the companies investing in CocoaAction must do all they can to avoid being unpleasantly surprised again in 2020.
