Empowering the middle to contribute to transitions

Over the years, the “Empowering the Middle” program has transformed and over time, became part of Barry Callebaut’s mainstream business as part of the company’s sustainability initiative, Forever Chocolate. As Olga Gormanova, Barry Callebaut’s Head of Sustainability Africa, explains: “Working with stakeholders across the sector is essential to achieving our Forever Chocolate goals. We will now streamline our learnings and further scale the approach, professionalizing cooperatives to support cocoa farmers and accelerate their financial inclusion”.

One of the objectives of Forever Chocolate is to lift more than 500,000 cocoa farmers out of poverty. Stronger producer cooperatives mean that farmers have access to more (financial) services, such as training on good agricultural practices, bank accounts, wallets, savings and finance. All of this contributes to the improved income and livelihood of farmers. Rabo Partnerships has worked with more than 100 producer cooperatives during the 4 years of the program. Our work was structured around two key interventions. First, we focused on creating a more professional and transparent cocoa value chain by implementing financial management systems at the cooperative level and digitalizing cooperatives’ operations.

N'goran Kouakou Saint Roméo, Chairman of the Cooperative Agricole de N’drikro Sinfra (CANS) explained that the program has made it possible for the cooperative to have a qualified in-house accountant trained and coached by Rabo Partnerships in accounting and a fully operational internal accounting management system with software made available by the program. “Thanks to the program, our cooperative is now able to follow the repayment of loans in a more professional way and we can provide reliable information and management reports that enable decision making”, he said.

The program was focused on providing financial services to cooperatives and their members. One of the key bottlenecks for cooperatives that prevent them from growing their operations is the lack of access to finance. By teaming up with local financial institutions, cooperatives were able to get access to affordable credit. One of the local financial institutions in this program is Banque Atlantique, a leading bank in Ivory Coast. Habib Koné, CEO of Banque Atlantique, confirmed that this program made it possible for the bank to lend more to producer cooperatives. “Because cooperatives are better organized in terms of governance and financial management, we have more insight into their operations, improved record keeping is useful for financing requests.”

“Through this project, we obtained bank financing, something we had not experienced that much in the past with formal banks. Little by little, we are obtaining our financial autonomy”, stated Ima Daouda, Chairman of Cooperative COOPAHZ (Société Agricole Here de Zagné), which received a loan to grow its activities. The program also convinced new members to join, explained Daouda. Ouedraogo Madi, Chairman of Cooperative CABAK (Société Coopérative Simplifiée Agricole Bada de Ketro Bassam), had a similar experience. “This program has made it possible to keep our farmers loyal and promote digital payments”, he stated.