Gender Equity & Women’s Empowerment
Taking a holistic approach to advance gender equity and promote women’s empowerment in the cocoa sector.
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 communities
In 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.
Our holistic approach to gender equity and women’s empowerment
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:
Raising awareness of gender
On farms
Promoting equal recognition of the work of women and men.
In farmer organizations
Mainstreaming women in leadership roles.
In communities
Raising women’s voices and decision-making abilities.
Providing access to resources for women
Financing
through Village Savings & Loan Associations (VSLAs), cash transfer programs and credit from microfinance organizations.
Training and education
on entrepreneurship and technical skills, literacy and school access for girls.
Securing land tenure
and enabling women to make decisions about land management while increasing their access to crop inputs such as seeds and fertilizer.
Benefits for cocoa households
When women have equal opportunities, cocoa households realize significant benefits:
Increased Income
Greater opportunity to generate income, both on and off the farm.
Improved Nutrition
Ability to regularly consume more nutritious foods.
Child Protection
Greater likelihood that children will attend school, reducing child labor.
Climate Adaptation
Introduction of agroforestry and conservation practices to build resiliency.
How we will drive progress
Cargill 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
Progress reported in 2021:
- More than 11,000 women benefited from over 600 VSLAs set up by CARE and the International Cocoa Initiative in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
- Cargill is working with the International Finance Corporation and Empow’Her to provide entrepreneurial training and coaching to 687 women organized in groups to start income-generating activities as part of the Coop Academy in Côte d’Ivoire.
- In Côte d’Ivoire, Cargill is working with Empow’Her and PUR Projet to promote diversified incomes and climate-smart entrepreneurship for women, supporting so far 50 women who have started 10 business projects in agroforestry.
- We continue to promote women-led businesses contributing to income diversification in our cocoa supply chain, such as in Cameroon with LadyAgri and in Brazil with Imaflora.
Related stories
How we are helping women by advancing gender equality in the cocoa sector
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.
Marie needed a new way to support her family in Côte d'Ivoire. So, Cargill helped her open a business.
Cargill-supported Village Savings and Loans Associations – commonly known as VSLAs – empower women entrepreneurs in cocoa communities.
Read Time: 3 minutes
Farming families, the cornerstone of sustainable cocoa
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 »