Cocoa

THE United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched a $6 million project to improve the level of education and the livelihood of youth in the cocoa-growing communities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
Under the project, children in cocoa-growing areas in the two countries are to be given vocational training to improve their livelihoods.
The programme, being implemented in partnership with the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), is dubbed: Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (ECHOES).
At a stakeholders’ meeting in Accra yesterday, where the programme was launched, the Director of the Ghana Mission of USAID, Mr Robert Hellyer, expressed his commitment to ensuring poverty was mitigated in the cocoa-growing areas.
He mentioned lack of adequately trained teachers and low level of functional literacy among out-of-school youth as major challenges confronting the communities.
That, he pointed out, was the main reason why USAID was seeking to strengthen its partnership with African countries, as well as support research in areas including industry, health and agriculture to help to improve access to quality and relevant education for thousands of children living in the cocoa farming communities in Ghana and Cote d' Ivoire.
"Ultimately, an innovative public-private-partnership approach will provide children on cocoa farms with a better future," Mr Hellyer said.
He urged stakeholders to come out with recommendations that would help to strengthen cocoa-growing communities and expand opportunities for the youth and adults through relevant education.
The National Community Participation Co-ordinator for the Basic Education Division (BED) of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mrs Josephine Kuffour-Duah, noted that there had been tremendous improvement in the relationship between ECHOES staff and the government officials and added that the division had watched it grow into a successful and useful programme for some selected schools in the cocoa-growing communities.
She appealed to stakeholders to judiciously help the programme to be a success.