Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, Phase II

Cocoa is primarily grown by smallholder farmers in West Africa, Latin America, and Asia, offering them concrete opportunities to generate cash income. However, the proportion of smallholder farmers living in poverty remains high, and cocoa production also faces multi-faceted environmental challenges. Against these manifold challenges, multi-stakeholder approaches have gained momentum in recent years. Switzerland being an important chocolate consumer and exporting country, the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa (SWISSCO) was formally established in 2018 and has since become a leading sector-wide initiative.

This new phase of SECO support to SWISSCO focuses on leveraging the resources of all supply chain partners and other sectors with the aim of effectively implementing SWISSCO’s Roadmap 2030. The Roadmap refers to selected SDGs and defines specific targets in the following four areas:

1) Towards a living income for cocoa farmers and their families

2) Deforestation-free and climate-friendly cocoa supply chain

3) Tackling child labour and improving perspectives of youth

4) Enhancing transparency and traceability within the cocoa supply chain

Gender and innovation are transversal themes of the Roadmap.

Institutional Dimension:

Cocoa imported to Switzerland originates entirely from sustainable sources

Enhanced alignment and strengthened dialogue among Swiss Cocoa stakeholders from government, private sector, academia and civil society

Peer-Learning (Window 1)

Increased collaboration on the national and international level with other cocoa stakeholders

Innovation (Window 2)

Development and effective implementation of innovative solutions that address farmers needs

Landscape (Window 3)

Development of sustainable sourcing landscapes, involving various stakeholders and regional institutions and address multiple supply chains

Better management of natural resources by farmers/Increased climate resilience at farm and supply chain level

Environmental services on and off-farm are increased

Local organizations and producer organisations are strengthened

The role of women and female cocoa producers is strengthened

The socio-economic situation of cocoa farmers is considered

Principaux résultats antérieurs:  

Association: The SWISSCO as an association was strengthened and consolidated with membership increasing from 43 to 74 members.

Peer learning network: A participatory network of topic-specific communities of practice has developed among the members, e.g. on child labour, living income, climate and biodiversity.

Public-private partnerships: Two calls for proposals have resulted in overall 14 projects in nine countries, leveraging almost CHF 20 million in private funding (in addition to the 7.6 million provided by SECO) and reaching over 90’000 farmers that manage an area of over 100’000 ha.