Final Report: Assessing the poverty impact of sustainability standards: Fairtrade in Ghanaian cocoa
Abstract
This report presents the findings for Ghana of the DFID funded project ‘Assessing the poverty impact of sustainability standards'. The study (2009-13) had the following objective: ‘to systematically examine the impact of voluntary social and environmental standards on poverty and livelihoods, particularly for the most disadvantaged workers and producers in developing countries’. Two commodities were selected by DFID and the research team for inclusion in this study, namely tea and cocoa. For cocoa, the countries chosen for inclusion were Ecuador and Ghana. Ghana was indicated as a preference of DFID because it has a country programme in Ghana and because of the importance of Ghana to world cocoa production. The study focuses on a producer organisation in Ghana which has had Fairtrade certification for many years. The project aims to answer specific research questions on the poverty impacts of voluntary standards. This report explores only those questions of relevance to the Ghanaian situation.
Citation
Nelson, V.; Opoku, K.; Martin, A.; Bugri, J.; Posthumus, H. Final Report: Assessing the poverty impact of sustainability standards: Fairtrade in Ghanaian cocoa. Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, London, UK (2013) 154 pp.
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