Women are the social and economic foundation of many cocoa-growing communities. They are farmers, entrepreneurs and business owners, and also often take primary responsibility for children’s education and family nutrition. Empowering women not only improves their livelihoods and that of their families, but it can also have a significant positive impact on communities at large.
Gender equity in cocoa communitiesIn cocoa communities, women provide nearly half the labor on farms. Our goal is to advance gender equity and women’s empowerment through gender-focused programs that can help close the gaps in equality and contribute to broad societal change.
Cargill supports gender equity and women’s empowerment holistically and at scale through the Cargill Cocoa Promise, our program to enable farmers and their communities to achieve better incomes and living standards while growing cocoa sustainably. The program has been implemented in all countries where we source cocoa: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Indonesia, Brazil and Ecuador.
We focus our interventions on two areas where we can have the greatest impact on cocoa households:
Promoting equal recognition of the work of women and men.
Mainstreaming women in leadership roles.
Raising women’s voices and decision-making abilities.
through Village Savings & Loan Associations (VSLAs), cash transfer programs and credit from microfinance organizations.
on entrepreneurship and technical skills, literacy and school access for girls.
and enabling women to make decisions about land management while increasing their access to crop inputs such as seeds and fertilizer.
When women have equal opportunities, cocoa households realize significant benefits:
Greater opportunity to generate income, both on and off the farm.
Ability to regularly consume more nutritious foods.
Greater likelihood that children will attend school, reducing child labor.
Introduction of agroforestry and conservation practices to build resiliency.
How we will drive progressCargill partners with customers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), service providers, implementing partners, governments and others to deliver innovative solutions and harness the combined power of gender equity and women’s empowerment interventions.
As a signatory to the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, we are working to mainstream gender in our own operations and across supply chains. With an integrated approach and improved data and reporting, we will continue to build capacity for gender-focused resources and scalable solutions.
Download our full Gender Equity & Women’s Empowerment Strategy
When women have more opportunities and support, family nutrition, children’s education and family incomes go up, while social such as child labor and environmental risks go down.
Cargill-supported Village Savings and Loans Associations – commonly known as VSLAs – empower women entrepreneurs in cocoa communities.
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Agricultural services, trainings and inputs for cocoa farming often don’t reach women. Yet women play a vital role in cocoa production and the livelihood of the household including by generating alternative income.
If not mentioned elsewise, all West Africa photos in relation to sustainability are by Sandrine Bénitah « @Sandrine Bénitah »