Solidaridad’s RECLAIM Sustainability! Programme To Promote Fair Value Distribution

Solidaridad, an international civil society organization, has launched its RECLAIM Sustainability! programme at a brief ceremony in Accra.

The five-year programme, which is implemented by Solidaridad and TrustAfrica with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, seeks to contribute to sustainable and inclusive cocoa, oil palm and gold supply chains, in which producers receive a fair value for their produce and work under safe conditions, without the use of child labour, and land rights and forest are protected.

It also seeks to improve the capacity of cocoa and oil palm farmers and miners to bargain for equitable access and sustainable use of natural resources.

Farmers, artisanal small-scale miners and workers in Ghana are key players in tackling major challenges such as poverty and climate change, yet their voices are often unheard.

The RECLAIM Sustainability! programme will, therefore, create a civic space where the interests, voices and rights of farmers, workers and citizens are represented and heard in decision making while promoting a supportive public sector, a responsible private sector, and a vibrant and strong civil society.

This, Solidaridad believes, is needed to contribute to an inclusive and sustainable economy, with prosperity and inclusion for all as well as healthier ecosystems.

The Regional Director of Solidaridad West Africa, Isaac Kwadwo Gyamfi, called for a responsible private sector that implements comprehensive policies, and innovative and inclusive business models for truly sustainable sourcing, production, trade and investment.

“Civic space in Ghana’s agro-ecological landscape is narrowed and continues to shrink. In some African countries, the space for effective policy formulation and engagement is repressed, obstructed or even closed. Opening up civic space must, therefore, involve local, national and international engagement, as well as capacity building and institutional strengthening,” he added.

The Executive Director of TrustAfrica, Dr Ebrima Sall, said his organization was pleased to partner Solidaridad to build the capacity of farmers and other workers, and civil society to strategically position them in the civic space in Ghana and West Africa to contribute to decision-making to influence policy at the national level.

“What we at TrustAfrica find most exciting about the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme is its great transformative potential. In the next five years, we should see greater equity in the value chains that the programme is working on, decent working conditions and living wages for all, economic rights, and gender equity,” he said.

For his part, the Dutch Ambassador to Ghana, Ron Strikker, said the Dutch government was happy to support the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme as it complements the government’s strategic plan for Ghana.

Mr. Strikker pledged the Dutch government’s continued partnership with the Government of Ghana, the private sector and civil society through dialogue to eliminate child labour and mainstream gender in the thematic sectors of agriculture.

The RECLAIM Sustainability! programme is implemented by a consortium of six Solidaridad’s Regional Expertise Centres (REC) and three external consortium partners.

In Africa, Solidaridad West Africa will be working with Trust Africa and local civil society to reclaim sustainability for farmers, cooperatives and other workers. The five-year programme is implemented in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone.

Solidaridad has over 50 years of experience in developing solutions to make underprivileged communities more resilient.

It currently works in over 44 countries, on five continents, and through eight independently supervised regional offices.

The international civil society organisation says it envisions a world in which the economy works for all: a world in which all we produce and all we consume can sustain us while respecting the planet, each other, and the next generations.

This, therefore, informs its mission to enable farmers and workers to earn a living income, shape their own future, and produce in balance with nature by working throughout the whole supply chain to make sustainability the norm.