Description

The rapid disappearance of forests in Côte d'Ivoire is one of the most dramatic examples of tropical deforestation with nearly nearly 90% of the country’s natural forests lost in the past 50 years. Agricultural expansion for the production of cash crops, including export commodities such as cocoa, is the main driver of deforestation and forest degradation in the country.
The project develops and tests a range of technical solutions to problems of sustainable cocoa intensification and restoration of agricultural and forest lands. These solutions are sourced from local, national, regional and international levels. Inclusive business and finance models to trigger enhanced participation and credit access among youth and women are designed and tested. Emerging lessons from pilot areas are subject to vigorous scale-up efforts aimed at triggering landscape-level transformations. Strategies for both piloting and landscape-level uptake of intensification and restoration efforts are refined through planning processes and implemented.

The project is implemented in three cocoa and forest landscape in Cote d’Ivoire. The beneficiaries are local cocoa grower communities with special reference to women, the youth and marginalized groups.