Voice Network in collaboration with Solidaridad West Africa and EcoCare Ghana have launched the 2022 Cocoa Barometer in Accra, Ghana. 

The 2022 Cocoa Barometer provides an overview of the current sustainability developments in the cocoa sector and highlights critical issues that are not receiving sufficient attention at present, discussing a broad range of social, economic, and environmental issues. 

The report shows that there remains a wide range of problems facing families in cocoa communities, including child labour; gender inequality; (infant) malnutrition; lack of access to education; insufficient health care facilities and sanitation; and a variety of labour rights violations for smallholders, workers, and tenants. 

Environmental issues such as deforestation and climate change remain a growing concern. Without a significant increase in earnings, cocoa farmers will be burdened with the responsibility for addressing this range of issues without the means or incentives to do so. As such, environmental and social harms are likely to continue in the world’s major cocoa producing countries Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Top-down national and international government strategies aimed at increasing cocoa production to address poverty tend to support the chocolate industry while failing to address these issues.

Download full press statement here