ICI makes significant progress in children's access to education

As a direct result of International Cocoa Initiative's (ICI) efforts to promote education last year, 4 000 children now have improved access to quality education and are less likely to be involved in dangerous work on cocoa farms.

These are some of the key results captured in ICI’s 2014 Annual Report, published today (12 June 2015) on World Day against Child Labour. ICI enabled a 19% increase in the number of children enrolled in school, compared to 2013, including an encouraging 26% increase in the number of girls enrolled.

Results were tracked using ICI’s  child protection measurement tool (called the ICI Protective Community Framework) which also show that the total number of schools (kindergarten, primary and secondary) in ICI-assisted communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire increased from 185 in 2013 to 205 in 2014.

“We see how real change is happening on the ground as result of our work and, most importantly, how this change is increasingly driven by the communities themselves,“ said Nick Weatherill, ICI’s executive director. “Our work, and the way we connect with farmers, cocoa-growing communities, local and national authorities, the cocoa industry and civil society, inspires action from many actors at all levels. We must keep this momentum going, and expand it.”

ICI has promoted child protection measures in more than 500 cocoa-growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire over the past eight years, leading to improved access to education for almost 55, 000 children. It aims to improve child protection for 1m children in cocoa-growing communities over the next five years.