Empowering communities. Cultivating change.
The Child Labour Platform (CLP) Country Working Group (CWG) in Côte d’Ivoire is a partnership dedicated to eradicating child labour and promoting decent work, with a strategic focus on the cocoa supply chain. This collaborative effort brings together key stakeholders to build a more sustainable and equitable future for local communities and the cocoa sector.
Why Côte d’Ivoire?
The CWG’s efforts are strategically targeted at the cocoa supply chain, a vital part of the country’s economy. By concentrating on this sector, the group can directly address the specific challenges and root causes of child labour within the cocoa industry, leading to more focused and impactful interventions.
From strategy to impact: Our work in action
The foundation
Building a unified front. The CWG operates on a multi-stakeholder model that begins with a detailed assessment of the landscape of existing child labour programmes and initiatives among public and private actors in the country, particularly within the Nawa region. This process helps identify gaps and opportunities for collaboration and synergies, ensuring a unified front in the fight against child labour.
Our strategic pillars
The CWG has developed an accelerating action plan for Côte d’Ivoire, guided by key recommendations to activate public–private collaboration. The plan focuses on two primary areas:
Expanding access to social protection: The CWG is working to broaden the access of vulnerable workers and households to social protection mechanisms. This includes initiatives such as cash transfers and health insurance schemes to build resilience against economic shocks.
Launching vocational training programmes for youth 15-17 years old: The CWG’s efforts are aimed at creating and implementing vocational training programmes to provide young people with skills for decent work. This provides a viable alternative to child labour and helps to break the cycle of poverty.
Promoting occupational safety and health (OSH): Through capacity building, awareness raising and workplace level support, the CWG’s efforts contribute to fostering a culture of prevention among cooperatives and producers where the right to a safe and healthy working environment is respected and fulfilled at all levels.
Driving tangible results
The CLP country working group is actively engaged in initiatives designed to deliver tangible results on the ground. These efforts include the implementation of recommendations to activate collaboration between the public and private sectors, with a focus on extending social protection and launching vocational training programmes.
Social Protection
The CLP has made significant progress in extending social protection through its health care model:
- Coverage: To date, more than 6,000 farmers have been enrolled through partnerships with 14 cooperatives, and all beneficiaries have received an insurance card.
- Infrastructure and partners: Fifteen rural health centres were integrated. Three multinational companies were involved in the process and covered health care fees in 2023-2024.
- Next steps: New monitoring mechanisms and a focal point for universal health coverage (UHC) in the Nawa region have been established. The CLP will also increase awareness-raising and sensitisation activities for farmers and communities.
Vocational Training Programme
The capacity of the government is being strengthened to provide vocational training for children aged 15 to 17 years. With the support of the ILO and the CLP, 15 training programmes have been developed by the ministry responsible for vocational training. These programmes cover a range of skills, including:
- farming (including farm waste recovery)
- market gardening (including small mechanisation, irrigation and composting)
- motorcycle mechanics
- cooking and baking
The vocational training programme targets 150 children, and focuses on cocoa processing, poultry farming, and cassava transformation in the Nawa region. Children are identified through companies’ child labour monitoring and remediation systems (CLMRS) and cooperatives’ lists based on agreed criteria. Professional integration programs are also planned to take place, promoting access to decent wage or self-employment opportunities.
Occupational Safety and Health
A total of 213 community actors were trained on the ILO WIND (Work Improvement for Neighbourhood Development) approach and supported in the development of action plans aimed at fostering a prevention policy and a tailored OSH management system. In addition, in the framework of the “Strategic Compliance Plan for Labour Inspectorates”, a new methodology has been developed to achieve effective and efficient enforcement and sustained compliance with national and international labour norms.
Impact and lessons learned
- Proximity and accessibility: Ensuring training is accessible in target villages is essential for participation.
- Sustainability: The integration of health insurance and social protection mechanisms strengthens the resilience of farming communities.
- Collaboration: The partnership model, involving government, cooperatives and the private sector, is key to achieving sustainable results.