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Good practice Imported

Côte d'Ivoire's Cocoa & Forests Initiative — Direct Payments for Environmental Services to 84,000 Cocoa Farmers

Côte d'Ivoire · Soubre · See the Côte d'Ivoire profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 59% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Cote d'Ivoire's 2024 Cocoa & Forests Initiative report shows a record 84,000 cocoa producers directly paid for environmental services, agroforestry expanded across 250,000 hectares, and 63,000 hectares of forest restored, backed by a new national agroforestry law.

84,000
Cocoa producers receiving direct payments for environmental services (2024)
250,000 hectares
Agroforestry area
67
Newly created agroforests
63,000+ hectares
Degraded forest restored
735,000+
Farmers reached with training/income-diversification support
91 %
Direct-supply-chain traceability to farm level
Côte d'Ivoire's Cocoa & Forests Initiative — Direct Payments for Environmental Services to 84,000 Cocoa Farmers

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Government of Côte d'Ivoire with the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (IDH, World Cocoa Foundation and 35 cocoa/chocolate companies)
Period
2017-2024
Keywords
agriculture, agroforestry, cocoa, payments for ecosystem services, deforestation-free supply chains

Context

The Cocoa & Forests Initiative launched in 2017 as a public-private partnership between the governments of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, 35 cocoa and chocolate companies, IDH and the World Cocoa Foundation, responding to decades of cocoa-driven deforestation in West Africa.

Activities

Direct payments for environmental services rewarded conservation and climate-smart farming; agroforestry expanded across 250,000 hectares including 67 newly created agroforests, and 63,000+ hectares of degraded forest were restored; in 2024 Cote d'Ivoire adopted a national legal framework recognising and regulating agroforestry on cocoa land.

Results

CFI's 2024 progress report records 84,000 cocoa producers receiving direct environmental-service payments, 735,000+ farmers reached in total, and 91% direct-supply-chain traceability to farm level.

Conclusions

Traceability is not yet complete (91%, not 100%), and independent observers caution that industry-reported hectare and farmer counts still need independent, landscape-level verification of deforestation reduction and shade-tree survival.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Government agencies (Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana), 35 cocoa and chocolate companies, IDH and World Cocoa Foundation field staff

Conditions for success

  • Continued industry cooperation
  • Farm-level traceability systems
  • Statutory tenure security for shade trees under the 2024 legal framework

Common failure modes

  • Incomplete (91%) traceability
  • Deforestation-reduction and shade-tree-survival outcomes not yet independently verified

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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