In 2022, Nestlé launched the Income Accelerator Program in Côte d’Ivoire as part of their ambition to help close the Living Income (LI) gap in their cocoa supply chain and combat the root causes of child labour risks.

The current test-at-scale phase involves 10,000 farming households in Côte d’Ivoire, following a previous one-year piloting period among 1,000 farming households. These households were registered in 18 cooperatives enlisted with six tier-1 suppliers of Nestlé. 

The Program consists of four key areas: child school enrollment, adoption of good agricultural practices (GAPs), regenerative practices through agroforestry, and diversified income sources outside of cocoa. Households receive a Mobile Money (MoMo) cash transfer of €100 for each key area that they participate in. When a household completes all four activities, a bonus of €100 is transferred, amounting to a total of €500 of additional income. 

The current study includes a sample of 1,500 households participating in the Accelerator and 500 non-participating households as a comparison group to measure progress of the program. All households sampled are part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan (NCP). Using two rounds of data collected in 2022 (baseline covering the 2021/20022 cocoa season) and 2023 (follow-up covering the 2022/2023 coco season), we estimate the short-term impact of the Accelerator 18 months after its start.

According to Rik Habraken and Oumou Diallo, the two lead authors of the study, the results are very encouraging given the short-term evaluation period. The results show that the Accelerator has significantly enhanced productivity and mitigated diseases on cocoa farms, increased household’s income, promoted financial access for women and child schooling rates.