“This Project Takes Care of Us”: Why sustainable cocoa starts with healthy farmers
A sustainable supply chain cannot exist without producers who are protected, in good health and able to earn a decent living from their work. In the cocoa sector, sustainability initiatives have long focused on improving productivity. However, every harvest constitutes much more: Thousands of rural families face daily challenges, particularly when it comes to access to healthcare.
In Côte d’Ivoire SASI, Elucid and Tony’s Chocolonely places people at the heart of agricultural sustainability. In the Divo region, a cocoa producing area in Côte d’Ivoire, the project CHEER improves access to healthcare service for 5,000 cocoa farmers and their families. The project is a collaboration between the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the chocolatier Tony’s Chocolonely and the social enterprise Elucid. At the heart of its implementation is Tony’s Chocolonely’s cocoa impact engine for systemic change in the cocoa sector, Tony’s Open Chain. It has committed itself to covering the costs of the producers’ own contribution towards the Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU), the national healthcare system, and the cost of a digital platform developed by Elucid that facilitates this co-financing of healthcare.
Health: a key factor for resilience
A cocoa farmer is being photographed for his new health insurance card.
“Other projects focus on taking care of the plantation; this one takes care of us.”, one farmer who is benefiting from the scheme tells the crowd during a field visit, after receiving his health insurance card. For a long time, farmers have often felt that development initiatives are more interested in their agricultural performance than in their living conditions. By investing in their access to healthcare, the project recognises their dignity, central role in the value chain and fundamental human needs. This approach represents a major shift in the concept of sustainability. Producing sustainable cocoa can no longer be limited to better agricultural practices or environmental targets. It also involves ensuring safer and more dignified living conditions for farmers.
In rural areas, illness is often a major source of economic vulnerability. When a farmer or a member of their family falls ill, the consequences can be severe: high medical costs, reduced income, disruption to work on the plantations and difficulties in meeting the needs of the household. One study estimates that in West Africa 57 working days are lost each growing season due to illness.
Access to the national healthcare scheme in Côte d’Ivoire, the CMU, is fundamentally changing this situation. Thanks to improved healthcare provision, farmers can seek medical advice more quickly, receive appropriate treatment and prevent health problems from becoming critical. However, many farmers have not yet registered with the scheme or are reluctant to do so due to the 30 per cent co-payment. This is where CHEER comes in: firstly, it helps farmers obtain their CMU card, by for example providing transport to CMU offices and it raises awareness among farmers about how the CMU scheme works.
Tony’s Chocolonely contributes to the co-payment of cocoa farmers while Elucid organises the platform that enables this co-payment. In addition, the co-financing by the vaccine alliance GAVI incorporates the improvement of medical services into the project. To this end, GAVI supports medical centers in the communities based on their needs and mobile clinics are organised with visits from doctors and others from hospitals in nearby towns. Furthermore, GAVI is providing vaccinations against malaria and cervical cancer for children. Malaria is by far the principal illness in the region. It can be treated easily if diagnosed and treated early but becomes severe and potentially lethal if not treated in time. With the security of the full coverage of the costs as well as the facilitation of receiving the cards etc., farmers do exactly this: go to the doctor earlier, when they feel unwell. SASI has contributed to sensibilization and registration campaigns by engaging with the local Elucid team, supporting locally and coordinating with state actors such as the local authority on coffee and cocoa, the Conseil du Café-Cacao.
Sustainably strengthening the national health system
One of the most important aspects of this initiative lies in its strategic decision to build on the existing CMU scheme. Rather than creating a parallel or temporary mechanism, the project contributes directly to strengthening the national health system. This approach promotes the sustainable integration of producers into public social protection policies. By covering their share of co-financing, the project facilitates rural families’ enrolment in the CMU whilst supporting the development of the national scheme.
This approach offers several major advantages. Firstly, it avoids the creation of isolated systems that disappear once funding ends. Secondly, it helps to strengthen people’s trust in national health institutions. Finally, it contributes to building a more inclusive and sustainable social protection system. Not only the cocoa farmer himself but also four other family members can be covered by the project.
By supporting access to universal health cover for producers, the CHEER project goes beyond the traditional approach of agricultural programs focused solely on productivity. By participating Tony’s Chocolonely recognises that social protection is an integral part of sustainability. This commitment also helps to strengthen the relationship of trust between the company and the producers. By investing in their well-being, Tony’s Chocolonely demonstrates that social responsibility can become a strategic pillar of the cocoa sector.
Improving access to healthcare not only enhances the well-being of farmers and their families, but also provides an essential foundation for more resilient and productive plantations: A healthy farmer is better able to maintain their plots, take part in agricultural training and uphold the quality of their produce. Health thus becomes a genuine driver of economic and agricultural development.