Jacobs Foundation: “TRansforming Education in Cocoa Communities”

TRECC, which stands for “TRansforming Education in Cocoa Communities”, is a comprehensive, systemic approach to achieving sustainable social and economic change in the region.

TRECC is a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to Action and was presented at the CGI Middle East & Africa meeting held in Marrakech, Morocco. The program will run from June 2015 until the end of 2022. The Jacobs Foundation is allocating CHF 50 m for this purpose. Significant additional financial support will also come from co-investments by other partners in the private sector. Ivory Coast is by far the world’s largest producer of cocoa, accounting for nearly 40 percent of global production. The country is experiencing continuing economic growth, yet poverty and a lack of education are pervasive problems.

The Jacobs Foundation has been working for six years to address these problems through its Livelihoods program. In cooperation with the private sector, the program helps smallholders increase their productivity and boost their earnings through optimized cultivation methods – thereby improving the income and living conditions of the entire family. With TRECC, the Jacobs Foundation is entering into a strategic partnership with the industry-wide platform CocoaAction.

CocoaAction, which is coordinated by the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), was created by the 11 leading companies in the cocoa industry to improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers, thus also securing the long-term production of cocoa. Through CocoaAction, these companies have undertaken to ensure access to training, better crop plants and fertilizer for some 300,000 cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana by the year 2020. Efforts are also being made to strengthen these farmers’ communities by promoting education, supporting women and protecting children.