The Labour Rights Project (LRP), a Global Affairs Canada-funded initiative, was launched to enhance worker voice and improve the detection and management of labour rights risks in the cocoa and oil palm sectors of Ghana and the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire. The preceding blog in this series outlined the project’s vision and the need it addresses through the deployment of worker voice technology in Cocoa and Oil Palm cooperatives in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. This blog will share the key findings derived from this project.
Launch of Digital Worker Voice Tools in a Cocoa Cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire
Growing Participation Across Countries and Sectors
Since the initial launch, engagement has been ongoing. The willingness of workers and farmers to share their experiences has been the cornerstone of this project. To date, over 1600 participants from the six cooperatives in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have completed surveys reflecting their realities and priorities. Women still accounted for approximately 35% of all survey respondents, ensuring their perspectives help shape the project’s understanding of workplace dynamics. This participation level also shows the need for open communication channels across agricultural supply chains.
Launch meeting with local authorities and stakeholders
Key Insights from the Frontlines: What the Survey Data Reveals
In terms of key results observed from a human and labour rights perspective, in the Ghana cocoa landscape over 70% survey respondents responded positively to the awareness and access of grievance mechanisms that they feel comfortable in raising their complaints, though the high awareness of grievance mechanisms may be skewed by those participants taking the survey that attended the LRP promotional campaigns.
From a health and safety perspective, while a majority of respondents reported having access to the necessary PPE to carry out their work safely, 47% women reported having applied chemicals on the farm when pregnant or breastfeeding. In terms of human rights risks, 47% respondents reported child labour risk. From a gender norms perspective, 87% women reported gender division of labour where women were assigned less valued tasks, paid less than then to perform similar work tasks. Furthermore, 46% women reported experiencing or witnessing unwanted sexual remarks / physical contact while working.
In the Ghana palm landscape over 80% survey respondents reported being satisfied with their working conditions such as having adequate rest days, ability to freely refuse overtime hours without the fear of negative consequences and having a written contract outlining their working arrangement.
From a health and safety perspective, while a majority of respondents reported having access to the necessary PPE to carry out their work safely, 49% women reported having applied chemicals on the farm when pregnant or breastfeeding. In terms of human rights risks, 50% respondents reported child labour risk. However, the gender norms KPI performed quite poorly. 93% women reported gender division of labour where women were assigned less valued tasks, paid less than then to perform similar work tasks. Furthermore, 80% women reported experiencing or witnessing rude language or were being shouted at while working.
In the Cote d’Ivoire cocoa landscape, target sample size wasn’t reached during the implementation period, therefore, a higher margin of error (8%) was observed thereby lowering the statistical representativeness of the results. Key takeaways being only 17% reported child labour risk. 60% respondents reported only having a verbal contract with their employer; 67% respondents affirmatively to gender division of labour at the farm level but only 29% respondents reported women being paid less than men for performing similar tasks – a skewed response as target sample size wasn’t achieved.
To share the insights and findings of the project, the project launched a Public Data Portal that captures the story data tells of both challenge and progress. You can explore the full results in the portal.
Farmer using IVR during the Launch
From Reporting to Resolution: What the Grievance Mechanism Reveals
The Grievance mechanism deployed under the Labour Rights Project was designed to transform worker’s and farmer’s grievances into concrete action. Since the rollout, 291 reports have been submitted on the LRP digital platform across participating cooperatives in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. These include both substantive reports and test reports, as many users initially try out the platform before submitting actual issues.
In the cooperatives where the tools had been in use for a longer period, particularly in Ghana’s cocoa cooperatives, several substantive reports led to documented follow-up actions. An internal review by case managers and field teams suggests that approximately 50% of all reports submitted were substantive entries, while the remaining reports were largely test submissions made as users familiarised themselves with the platform. Out of all the substantive submissions 60% of the cases were resolved with some form of remediation. This is considered quite a good percentage for just over a year old grievance mechanism based on Ulula’s historical data on grievance mechanisms that has an average remediation rate of 45%.
Some of the common topics within grievance cases were as follows:
- Halting Illegal Mining: A community report of illegal mining activities threatening farmland was immediately escalated to the Union Board, police, and Environmental Protection Agency. This swift intervention successfully halted the operation, protecting community resources and livelihoods.
- Resolving Labour and Land Disputes: The system has mediated complex conflicts, such as a dispute between a tenant farmer and landlord over contracted farmland. The cooperative management facilitated a resolution that included financial compensation for the tenant and the peaceful return of the land to the landlord, preventing a potentially violent conflict.
- Addressing Child Labour risk: A couple cases concerning a child not attending school was investigated by promoters, who visited the family to educate them on the importance of education and the legal implications of child labour, ensuring the child’s return to the classroom.
- Providing Critical Agricultural Support: In numerous cases of low productivity due to dead trees, pests, or a lack of tools, direct action was taken. Responses included the provision of cocoa seedlings, cutlasses, safety boots, and cash bonuses for inputs, complemented by training from Farm Coaches and Rural Service Centre teams on pruning and chemical application.
In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the delays in receiving data protection registration authorisation led to experiencing delays in launch and a shorter implementation cycle. Ghana cocoa had the most runway of 14 months run time followed by Ghana oil palm and Cote d’ivoire cocoa having a shorter implementation timeframe. These delays significantly reduced the time workers and farmers had to engage, establish trust and utilize the digital tools. In our decade of working with agriculture communities, Ulula has observed it takes a minimum of 9-12 months for the stakeholders to fully start trusting the platform to start leaving complex grievances, before that they engage by leaving either test messages or lower risk grievances observing its lifecycle/impact (i.e. the grievant remains anonymous, case is remediated, etc.), which further strengthens their trust on the platform to start leaving more complex grievances, often involving medium or high risk issues. This coupled with the barriers of digital literacy, unstable telecom and internet network connectivity (especially in Ghana oil palm and Cote d’Ivoire cocoa landscape) led to limited uptake of the digital grievance platform. To mitigate these issues, the Local Community Mobilizers actively worked to train and support the participants.
Case Management Challenges
Across both countries, case managers spoke openly about the practical challenges they dealt with during the project. Cooperative case managers, in addition to having competing responsibilities (from their day-to-day cooperative duties), often dealt with equipment shortages (e.g., lack of dedicated or malfunctioning computers/laptops), as well as persistent electricity and internet issues. These challenges severely limited the time available for follow-ups and documentation on the system dashboard, resulting in a noticeable lag in responding to workers. To mitigate this, the Proforest and Wildaf teams developed creative workarounds, particularly for smaller cooperatives. This often involved calling case managers directly to verbally discuss each case and then manually updating the information on the dashboard. While not ideal, this approach was necessary to manage worker expectations.
Looking Ahead: Sustaining Momentum
Women farmers participating in the Ghana Oil Palm sector
The newly launched Public Data Portal provides stakeholders, including brands, civil society organisations, governments, and researchers, with direct access to sector-aggregated findings from this project. We invite you to explore the data yourself by filtering results by country, sector, and topic. This open-access resource was developed to promote sector-wide transparency and collaboration, encouraging all stakeholders to engage directly with the data.
Looking ahead, the Labour Rights Project is exploring continued collaboration with brands sourcing from the region and cooperatives interested in sustaining or scaling the platform. As these discussions evolve, we remain open to collaboration with companies and partners interested in building on these learnings and contributing to lasting improvements in labour practices across the cocoa and oil palm sectors.