Sector companies to join World Cocoa Foundation presentation on CFI progress at COP28
Deforestation has increased through a number of sectors including with palm oil and cocoa. Pic: Shutterstock
Key businesses in the confectionery trade will be joining the World Cocoa Foundation and IDH sustainability organisation at this year’s COP28 event, to deliver an update on progress with the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, reports Neill Barston.
The venture, which was signed originally back in 2017, has been designed to bring together 38 stakeholders including Barry Callebaut, Olam, Hershey, Mars, Mondelez among many other major stakeholders and governments in Ghana and Ivory Coast in a drive towards eliminating deforestation.
While much anticipation has surrounded the initiative, concerns have been raised that the issue remains a severe problem in West Africa, with the Mighty Earth Campaign group stating that its own investigations have found that large tracts of forests, the size of significant European cities, are still being lost on an annual basis in the region. It cited illegal gold mining operations, as well as uncontrolled use of forested areas for cocoa and other farming purposes as being key negative impacts on the situation.
However, in response, the WCF claimed that the initiative was in fact making ‘good progress’ against its targets, with its presentation at COP28 set to link to the environmental event’s Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes, which aims to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture practices, positively impacting the sustainability and resilience of our food and agricultural systems.
As the organisation added, it will use COP28 to encourage companies, public donors and impact investors to join the CFI initiative in Ghana and Ivory Coast in the shared mission to tackle deforestation in the region. Significantly, as Confectionery Production has previously reported, deforestation in both Ghana and Ivory Coast has been a major factor over the past five decades, with a majority of the two nations’ forests being heavily impacted by farming, and mining, as well as coming under pressure from illegal migrants utilising forest areas.
According to the WCF, it said that since the initial phase of the scheme, which it asserted had delivered ‘a strong governance and tangible progress on traceability and agroforestry’ from both the public and private signatories, it stated that the CFI is now including landscape approaches in its strategy. In its view, this is critical to deliver public-private partnerships and investment for collective action in priority landscapes.
In 2023, to generate momentum, companies and government partners supported by WCF and IDH committed to implement at least one multi-stakeholder landscape programme in Ivory Coast and Ghana, to serve as a model for landscape collective action that can be replicated in other regions.
Notably, in Ghana the landscape programme is led by WCF with technical expertise from Proforest and previous funding support from the UK Government. The program is in line with the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme and aims to create a deforestation-free supply chain in the Asunafo-Astutifi landscape, protecting and restoring its forests, and improving the livelihoods of Ghanaian cocoa farmers. WCF and Proforest are working in close collaboration with the Ghana Forestry Commission, COCOBOD, local communities, and NGOs. The progress in this landscape collaboration will be presented at an event on the 3 December December at the Ghanaian pavilion, in the Blue Zone.
In terms of specific projects, in Ivory Coast areas of Yapo-Abbé and Bossématié have been selected to develop the first CFI collaborative projects in the country and demonstrate the business case for collective action in forest conservation, land restoration and supporting forest communities. WCF and IDH are working in close collaboration with the Ministries of Forest, Agriculture and Environment and their implementing agencies to roll-out the landscape approach in line with national policies.
Across both nations, national traceability systems entered the piloting phase and the national guidelines for the African Regional Standard for Sustainable Cocoa have been drafted. These policy developments, combined with the EU Deforestation Regulation, are poised to bolster the voluntary commitments of CFI, driving further progress towards a shared vision of a deforestation-free cocoa industry.