Global Chocolate and Cocoa Industry Reaffirms Long-Term Commitment to Responsible Cocoa Farming Through New Partnership

A new and historic partnership between the global chocolate and cocoa industry, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin and U.S. Representative Eliot Engel and the governments of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire reaffirms the industry’s continued commitment to promoting responsible cocoa farming in Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana. The new “Framework of Action in support of the Harkin-Engel Protocol” launched in a press conference at the U.S. Department of Labor underlines all parties shared responsibility in achieving a significant reduction of the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa growing areas. “Improving the lives of children and adults in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana is a matter of shared responsibility for all those involved, and our industry is fully committed to helping even more cocoa farming families through this innovative partnership,” said Larry Graham, President of the National Confectioners Association, on behalf of the global chocolate and cocoa industry. As part of the new partnership, the global chocolate and cocoa industry has made an immediate pledge to commit $7 million to further the goals of the Harkin-Engel Protocol and the Framework of Action, of which $2 million will support a new public private partnership led by the International Labor Organisation’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC), and $5 million includes the expansion of significant current industry work on cocoa which has demonstrated the value of partnerships of this nature. In addition, industry is making a further pledge to explore the possibility of committing an additional $3 million for remediation activities that further these goals.