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Cocoa

Articles overview

  • Learning Brief: Farmers’ Health as a Driver of Cocoa Supply Chain Resilience

    • Institute
    • Publication

    The long-term sustainability of the cocoa sector is inextricably linked to the physical and mental well-being of the smallholder farmers who underpin the global supply chain. This brief brings together the existing evidence on the health issues cocoa farmers face, their links to productivity and well-being, and the steps the cocoa industry can take to […]

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  • Learning Brief: Lessons from implementing the Cocoa Household Income Study (CHIS) for living income measurement

    • Institute
    • Publication

    The Cocoa Household Income Study (CHIS) is a sector-wide initiative providing a harmonised methodology for monitoring and assessing living income in the cocoa sector. Published in 2024, the CHIS Methodology offers guidance for collecting representative and comparable household income data across all cocoa-producing households. Since its publication, the CHIS approach has been adopted across the […]

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  • Endline Evaluation

    • Institute
    • Publication

    This endline evaluation assesses the two-year impact of the EnRoute programme, a partnership between ETG–Beyond Beans Foundation, Oxfam Novib, and KIT Institute. The programme set out to test practical, scalable approaches to closing the living income (LI) gap and reducing child labour (CL) among 599 farming households.  The programme tested three intervention models among cocoa-farming […]

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  • Alternative Income Generation

    • Institute
    • Publication

    As the majority of cocoa producers in West Africa continue to earn far below a living income, the concept of living income has become central to discussions on sustainable cocoa. While efforts have traditionally focused on increasing cocoa productivity, there is growing recognition that income diversification is essential to reduce vulnerability to price volatility and […]

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  • Addressing the income – child labour – gender nexus

    • Institute
    • Publication

    Child labour is a persistent global problem which adversely affects children’s physical and mental well-being. The problem is especially prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa: recent estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2024a) reveal an increase in child labourers from 70 million in 2016 to 87 million in 2024. Many of these children work on smallholder […]

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  • A Comparative Review of Living Wage and Living Income Benchmarking Approaches

    • Institute
    • Publication

    This paper offers a systematic review of leading living wage (LW) and living income (LI) benchmarking methodologies to help users select the most appropriate approach for their specific context and purpose. Drawing on criteria developed by the Living Income Community of Practice—such as data quality, local adaptability, and stakeholder ownership—the review highlights the strengths and […]

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  • Living Income Benchmark for the Eastern Province and Living Income Reference Price for the cocoa sector in Sierra Leone (2024)

    • Institute
    • Publication

    This study, commissioned by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as part of its effort to support the cocoa sector in Sierra Leone, compute two important  indicators: the Living Income Benchmark (LIB) for the cocoa-growing areas located in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone and the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) for the cocoa sector.  To bridge […]

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  • KIT Cocoa Living Income Questionnaire

    • Institute
    • Project

    KIT Institute has for long been at the forefront of living income research in the cocoa sector. Our experts have actively contributed to the Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP) and the Alliance on Living Income in Cocoa (ALICO), developing several tools and guidance documents for measuring the incomes of smallholder cocoa producers and evaluating […]

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  • The Potential of Landscape Approaches for Addressing Child Labour in the Cocoa Sector 

    • Institute
    • Publication

    This synthesis of six case studies studies the impact of the “landscape approach” and offers recommendations for its design and setup, as this approach – in theory – has the potential to support effective and sustainable action to prevent and address child labour. Based on an operational definition of a “landscape approach” – an approach […]

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  • Nestlé Income Accelerator Program: Progress Report of the Test-at-Scale Phase

    • Institute
    • Publication

    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 […]

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  • Nestlé Income Accelerator Programme (IAP)

    • Institute
    • Project

    This innovative intervention aims to tackle child labour, decrease poverty, promote diversification and push for more gender equality. The Income Accelerator Programme (IAP) is a four-year program initiated by Nestlé and six of their traders aimed at increasing the income levels of 10,000 cocoa farming households in Côte d’Ivoire while reducing the prevalence and risk of […]

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  • The Cocoa Household Income Study (CHIS) Programme

    • Institute
    • Project

    The Cocoa Household Income Study (CHIS) Programme is a sector-wide effort to create a harmonised methodology for measuring living income in the cocoa sector. The initiative is led and funded by World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and […]

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