Mars Chocolate pledges to empower women farmers

Mars Chocolate is implementing a set of actions that will help women to both fully contribute to and benefit from cocoa development programmes.

The company has been listening to the concerns of women and working with women leaders in their communities to help develop community development plans. In addition to strengthening the voice and role of women in community leadership, the economic empowerment of women will be addressed, which will benefit women in cocoa communities specifically and farmers as a whole. Economic empowerment of women is not only a tool for gender equity in its own right, but it also has a powerful multiplier effect for the broader wellbeing of children, families and communities.

Mars Chocolate will complete an assessment of the condition of women cocoa farmers in its Vision for Change (V4C) programme in Côte d’Ivoire by the end of this year. The company will also sign the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles before 1 May 2013. By 1 April 2014, a plan of action based on the assessment will be published to ensure the programme adequately addresses gender equity.

Through 2014, Mars Chocolate will help develop the foundation for a sector-wide assessment of gender equity by examining existing third party data on gender in the global cocoa sector and by using this review to identify knowledge gaps. In conjunction with the V4C assessment, the company will establish a set of draft gender equity indicators that align with Vision for Change and can also be used across the global cocoa sector. By 1 January 2015, the review will be used to advocate for and support a sector level review of gender equity in cocoa production through selected sector-wide organisations.

With regard to transparency, Mars Chocolate will also begin regularly reporting on the condition of women in cocoa production in its top four cocoa origin countries by 2018. A corresponding plan of action will be established in these origin countries as well.