Context, challenges, and approaches

Côte d’Ivoire stands as the world’s foremost producer and exporter of cocoa, making cocoa ‎production the bedrock of its economy and supplying nearly 40% of the world’s cocoa. Within the ‎country, the Nawa region is one of the largest cocoa farming areas. Most of the cocoa production ‎in this area is done by smallholder farmers in small settlements, many of which are far from towns ‎and villages, connected only by dirt roads through rough forest terrain. ‎

Cocoa provides employment and income for millions of Ivorians across the country. Unfortunately, ‎it is also known that child labour occurs in many of the cocoa plantations. One of the main reasons ‎for this is that the cocoa producing areas lack formal, quality schools with sufficient resources. ‎Often schools are too far away, and where they do exist in these settlements and small villages, ‎they are understaffed and don’t have the appropriate materials to ensure children learn at the ‎right level. Regional authorities do not always know where schooling needs exist or what they are, ‎and they are many times unable to provide the necessary resources to strengthen education ‎opportunities for children. Dropout rates are high, despite legislation requiring children to attend ‎school until they are 15 years old.‎

Breaking poverty cycles with education

It is widely recognised that the most effective way to eradicate child labour is to improve access to ‎and quality of education. Universal quality education can break intergenerational cycles of poverty ‎and household dependence on child labour. Therefore, UNICEF, Save the Children and ‎SYNADEEPCI (teachers union) have formed a partnership that has implemented the WNCB ‎programme over the last four years. ‎The activities are being implemented at the central level (Abidjan) and in the departments of Buyo, ‎Guéyo, and Soubré in the Nawa region, with an intensification of activities around child labour in ‎cocoa production.    ‎

Complementing activities

Under the WNCB umbrella, the partners have taken on specific responsibilities that complement ‎each other.

Save the Children sets up bridge classes and community schools, engages in financial ‎education for communities through VSLAs (village saving and loan associations) while ensuring that ‎cocoa cooperatives adhere to principles governing child rights in business. In its bridge classes ‎approach the organisation makes use of the so-called Literacy Boost and Numeracy Boost ‎methods.

UNICEF focuses on national-level advocacy and strengthening child protection services to ‎standardize services and to identify and respond directly to the needs of children in (or at-risk of) ‎child labour. This support includes facilitating access to basic social services, providing learning ‎opportunities, and supporting the economic empowerment of families as a prerequisite for ‎children’s enrolment and/or retention in school. ‎

SYNADEEPCI works to mobilise education stakeholders to join efforts for the elimination of child ‎labour and trains teachers to play a key role in the prevention of child labour. Through the training, ‎teachers increasingly take up their role in raising awareness among parents and communities. ‎

Read more about the different activities: