Fairtrade Africa is holding its first Joint Review and Planning meeting on the West Africa Cocoa Programme (WACP) for the year with Cocoa producers and allied partners in Ghana.
The session has been underway in Ghana’s garden city of Kumasi from the 10th to the 14th of February 2020.
Fairtrade West Africa Region team lead for Cocoa, Abubakar Afful, in a LinkedIn post noted the meeting provides an opportunity for all partners to review the West Africa Cocoa Programme which has been implemented with Fairtrade certified cooperatives for the past 4 years in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
Earlier at the opening of the review and planning meeting, Mr Afful assured that Fairtrade remains committed to collaborating with organisations to make them resilient, self-sustaining and viable with the support of its partners and the most importantly the gallant producers.
He emphasised that Fairtrade would continue to ensure farmers receive the needed support to take advantage of the Living Income Differential (LID) premium introduced by the Ghana and Ivorian governments last year, in addition to the Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium.
This meeting is the third in the series since the inception of the West Africa Cocoa Programme.
It was attended by representatives from Fairtrade Africa West Africa Region, Ghana Cocoa Board, Chocolate manufacturers, Fairtrade Certified Cooperatives and the Department of Cooperatives under the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.
The 5-day meeting which ended on 14 February, also sought collective ways to improve and finding innovative options for addressing some of the challenges that farmers face with respect to market access, pricing and addressing the social conditions of farmers.
The close of the meeting coincided with activities marking Ghana’s National Chocolate Day 2020 aimed at promoting increased local consumption of cocoa products for health and wellbeing.
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