Child Labor: U.S Earmarks $7.5m To Checkmate Trend In Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana

The Department of Labor of the United States of America has committed a combined funding of $7.5million through the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) to evaluate and measure progress that will reduce child labor in the cocoa sectors of two West African countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

According to the Department of Labor, $3million will be provided in a four-year project that will undertake activities to evaluate and measure progress that will reduce child labor in the cocoa sectors of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
The activities include a mapping of stakeholder interventions to reduce child labor in the cocoa sector, an assessment of the effectiveness of funded efforts to reduce child labor, and a survey of incidence of child labor in cocoa-producing areas of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in the 2018-2019 growing season.

The Department of Labor had, in November approved $4.5million for a four-year project, called “Eliminating Child Labor in Cocoa,” to assist 50 cocoa-growing communities in Côte d’Ivoire to design and implement Community Action Plans to address child labor at the community level.

The project will directly support the protection of at least 5,450 vulnerable children engaged in or at risk of child labor by providing them formal and non-formal educational opportunities, and increasing access to school feeding programs. It will also provide livelihood services to 1,500 vulnerable households in these communities.

ILAB leads the U.S. government’s efforts to ensure fair treatment of workers around the world and the ability to share in the benefits of the global economy. To these ends, ILAB has provided funding for more than 290 projects in more than 90 countries to combat the worst forms of child labor by assisting vulnerable children and their families.

By Patrick Aigbokhan