In connection with the World Day Against Child Labor on June 12, 2021, the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa (SWISSCO) joins the Alliance 8.7 – a global partnership committed to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labor, in accordance with Target 8.7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
There are currently 40 million people in modern slavery and 160 million children in child labor. Alliance 8.7 focuses on scaling up solutions that work, driving innovation, and leveraging and maximizing the impact of resources.
With this step, SWISSCO underlines the need to scale up efforts to end child labor and improve the perspectives of the youth in the main cocoa producing countries. Despite manifold industry and government efforts, to date the progress made to eradicate child labor in cocoa production in West Africa has been only limited and the targeted elimination of child labor is still far from reach.
Christian Robin, Executive Director of SWISSCO, comments: “Since its creation in 2018, SWISSCO has been following a multistakeholder approach in working on the causes and possible solutions to contribute to tackling this challenge. Alliance 8.7 with 240 partners and 24 pathfinder countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast offers a unique place where exchange, joint learning and collective action is happening.”
SWISSCO encourages its members to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on a cross-sectoral level. As part of its 6 Principles for Sustainable Cocoa production, SWISSCO positions the promotion of decent living conditions and the contribution to a living income for cocoa farmers and their families, as well as the prevention of the worst forms of child labor. Specifically, SWISSCO has been undertaking the following efforts:
- Examining the effects of income changes on child labor: The SWISSCO Working Group on Child Labor and Living Income has supported a study to synthesize more than 50 peer-reviewed studies on child labor and income in a meta-study. The study has made clear that there are no simple patent remedies: “While decreases in household income tend to increase child labor, increases in household income can cause child labor to rise, as well as to fall.” What is needed is a holistic strategy containing measures to improve smallholder farmers’ resilience to shocks, to improve access to basic services (e.g. quality education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation), to raise awareness on children’s rights, and the risks associated with child labor. Finally, it requires the promotion of a supportive enabling environment, through the development of policies and strategies that help to scale up the activities mentioned above.
Meta study on child labor and income
- Projects on the ground: In strategic alliance with the Swiss Government represented by State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), SWISSCO has launched 14 public-private partnerships aimed at improving the living conditions of cocoa farmers and families. One pilot project, implemented in partnership with Nestle, the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) and ECOM, seeks to reduce the prevalence of child labor by strengthening the income of vulnerable cocoa growing households using a cost-efficient, risk-based targeting and monitoring mechanism, and is aligned with social policies of the Ghanaian Government.
- Measuring progress: The joint Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework tracks progress of selected key performance indicators involving areas relevant to the elimination of child labor. Among others, it measures interventions to monitor the situation of children and protect children engaged in harmful work.
MEL framework
- Joining forces with other national platforms: In its quest to enhance sustainability in the cocoa sector, SWISSCO is closely partnering with the other European national initiatives for sustainable cocoa (ISCOs) in Belgium (Beyond Chocolate), the Netherlands (DISCO) and Germany (GISCO). The national initiatives seek to foster joint learning and collaboration at European level and plan to establish a joint working group on child labor.
As part of the Alliance 8.7, SWISSCO will continue to share knowledge and experiences around best practice across our stakeholder groups, in order to accelerate the transition to a viable and resilient cocoa value chain, for both present and future generations, reinforcing Switzerland's official participation in this alliance with a cocoa value chain specific engagement.