Major concerns and recommendations – Côte d’Ivoire

The briefing analyzes the legislative and institutional deficiencies in Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa sector, highlighting a lack of traceability, inadequate pricing mechanisms, and weak law enforcement. It argues that these gaps contribute to deforestation, child labor, and farmer poverty. The report recommends the creation of a centralized traceability system, a more transparent price-setting process, and a collaborative institutional framework to coordinate the various government ministries and agencies involved in cocoa and forest management.

• Côte d'Ivoire lacks a regulated traceability system to track cocoa from production to destination, which is essential for ensuring compliance with regulations on deforestation, child labour, and prohibited production zones. The report notes that without such a system, farmers may misreport production from illegal plots as coming from legal ones, and post-harvest blending further obscures the origin of the beans.
• The mechanism for setting the farm-gate price paid to farmers is insufficiently regulated and lacks transparency. The power to set prices shifted from a negotiated agreement to a price imposed by the regulatory body, the Conseil Café-Cacao (CCC), through Ordinance No. 2011-481 of December 28, 2011. Additionally, the Living Income Differential (LID) introduced in 2019 is not governed by any legal text.
• There is a significant lack of transparency and stakeholder participation in cocoa sector decision-making. Civil society organisations (CSOs) and Farmer-Based Organisations (FBOs) report limited inclusion in political dialogues, such as the one initiated in February 2021 between the Ivorian government and the European Union.
• Existing legal texts are poorly enforced and often unknown to the people they affect. This leads to continued illegal production in classified forests and national parks, the use of unauthorized pesticide applicators, and the persistence of forced and child labour. The report also highlights that women's access to land is often blocked by social and cultural barriers despite legislation that prohibits gender inequality.
• The law on rural land tenure (Law n°98-750 of 23 December 1998) is ill-suited to local realities because it emphasizes individual ownership over collective family assets and imposes expensive certification procedures that small farmers cannot afford. This results in low certification rates between 2% and 6% and creates land tenure insecurity.
• The institutional framework suffers from overlapping competencies and a lack of synergy between ministries. For example, there is ambiguity regarding whether the Ministry of Water and Forests (MINEF) or the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER) is responsible for managing cocoa production in agroforests.
• Cooperatives often exhibit poor governance, with some being created by non-farmers for speculative profit rather than to support producers. The report suggests that the Conseil Café-Cacao (CCC) should use its power to withdraw approvals from non-compliant operators.

APA

ClientEarth (2022). Major concerns and recommendations – Côte d’Ivoire. https://www.clientearth.org/media/t0flt3cn/recherche-cacao_briefing-2_vf-anglais.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. Major concerns and recommendations – Côte d’Ivoire. 2022. https://www.clientearth.org/media/t0flt3cn/recherche-cacao_briefing-2_vf-anglais.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=ClientEarth |title=Major concerns and recommendations – Côte d’Ivoire |date=October 2022 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/t0flt3cn/recherche-cacao_briefing-2_vf-anglais.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{clientearth2022major, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{Major concerns and recommendations – Côte d’Ivoire}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/t0flt3cn/recherche-cacao_briefing-2_vf-anglais.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }