We believe when women rise, cocoa thrives. Women are a catalyst for change and are essential for helping cocoa-growing communities to thrive. Empowering women at an individual, household and community level strengthens Cocoa Life’s impact. That’s why promoting women’s empowerment is at the heart of our program and carries throughout our work across our three key focus areas.
GENDER INEQUALITY
Striking gaps between women and men exist in cocoa-growing communities:
- Lower incomes: Female cocoa farmers often earn less than male farmers.
- Less access to training: Women often struggle to access the training and education that will help them understand how to improve their own situation and gain empowerment and autonomy in affairs at home and in their community.
- Lower economic empowerment: Women typically face greater challenges than men in achieving economic empowerment and sustainable livelihoods. This includes obstacles around accessing finance, farm inputs, and participating in farming collectives and cooperatives.
- Less land ownership: 40% of the work on cocoa farms is done by women, yet they only own 2% of the land and are excluded from group training sessions, according to research.
- Decision-making power: Women often lack a voice in decision-making at the household, community, district and national level, and are often underrepresented in leadership positions. Women often are denied the right to decide when and how to overcome the challenges they face.
A VITAL ROLE IN SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
Women play a vital role in cocoa farming but often go unrecognized. Women cultivate change in their communities, on the farm and with their children. Here's what we've seen:
- Women contribute beyond cocoa; they cultivate other crops for domestic consumption, such as yam, cocoyam, cassava and plantains.
- There is a strong correlation between women's empowerment, education and child development.
- Increasing women's involvement and voice in decision making leads to more sustainable communities.
Women’s empowerment is critical. We are deliberate about investing in women because it creates an impact that echoes throughout their communities. Following our global strategy, we have women’s empowerment action plans in place for Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic, which have been developed based on learnings and insights from international and in-country partners.
The action plans set out how we are planning to empower more women. That means helping them run more successful farms; take a more active role in community decision making; give their children a quality education; make cocoa farming more attractive for young people; become more entrepreneurial; and protect their environment.
Here are some concrete actions we are taking:
- Increasing women's access to farm inputs, land ownership and membership in farmer organization.
- Promote leadership positions for women as part of the Community Development Committees and Community Action Plan processes.
- Aiming to reach participation of 50% of young women (age 15+) in youth-oriented programming.
- Helping women improve their livelihoods through access to finance, entrepreneurial skills and more.
"Cocoa Life's Women Empowerment plans are unique in that they are developed from the bottom up. An intentional effort is made to engage with women, men, boys and girls as the basis for developing the plans. I have seen a change among women in cocoa growing communities in Ghana, and noticed that women feel safer and more welcome to speak out. More men in these communities are speaking up for the participation and recognition of women, and I’m proud to be involved in such a program."
Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, Director, ABANTU for Development
Cocoa Life’s programs are premised on helping to empower women in cocoa communities as it can support enhanced management of family finances, more children attending school, increased income from sources other than cocoa and more sustainable, thriving communities. We work to seek impactful solutions with existing and new partners to help bring benefits to cocoa-growing communities through women’s empowerment.
We have enabled women to gain greater access to and control over both household and productive resources, strengthened their ability to lead their community and have their voices heard, resulting in positive returns for women and their communities.
We have already seen how women act as impact amplifiers, especially in forest protection. We’ve witnessed, for example, the emergence of Green VSLAs led by women who are becoming community champions, sparking initiatives that help protect the environment and earn them additional income.
ACCESS TO FINANCE
Financial security tends to be out of reach for cocoa farmers, especially women. This is often due to their low, unstable incomes and lack of access to banking services. Cocoa Life partners with NGOs to provide Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) as a resource for cocoa communities in all our cocoa-producing countries. As part of a VSLA, people can save money together and take small loans from those savings.
Overall, VSLAs help communities thrive. In addition to strengthening their savings culture, financial literacy and management skills, they help empower women economically.
By the end of 2024, approximately 69% of community members participating in VSLAs were women. Many choose to invest in their farms, as well as their children’s education.
This page was updated in April 2024.