The world’s two largest cocoa producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have created a joint body to enhance coordination in research, price setting and the fight against child labour. The two countries, which produce around 60 % of the world’s cocoa, have agreed on some of those issues before, but this new organisation marks a formal step towards closer ties.

According to the Ivory Coast’s government, the Ivory Coast/Ghana Cocoa Initiative (ICCIG) will promote their cocoa industries globally and defend their joint position in the global market. The organization will enable the two countries to formalize an agreement started three years ago by which they both announce farm gate prices at the start of the growing season on 1 October, a measure intended at reducing smuggling across their shared border.

In 2019, they raised the guaranteed price they pay cocoa farmers to around USD 1.50 per kilogramme for the 2019/20 main crop harvest. They also added a minimum price floor to address a perceived inequality between farmers’ incomes and money made by big commodities traders.