International Cocoa Initiative New Job Opportunity

December 25th, 2021 at 02:30 pm

Established in 2002,  International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is a humanitarian foundation that promotes partnership among the chocolate and cocoa industry, cocoa-producing governments, civil society and NGOs to support the elimination of child labour in cocoa-growing communities. Our head office is in Geneva, Switzerland and we have operations in Ghana and Ivory Coast with National Offices in Accra and Abidjan.

ICI has developed a Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) that allows industry partners to manage responsibly the risk of child labour in their cocoa supply chain. In line with the Ghana Child Labor Monitoring System (GCLMS), the system is based on the presence of Community Facilitators (CF) within cocoa-growing communities who raise awareness on the issue of child labour; identify cases and implement remediation activities. (www.cocoainitiative.org

Job Description

INTERNATIONAL COCOA INITIATIVE (ICI)

Terms of Reference: Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation through locally based agents

Project

One area of ongoing research and learning at ICI is the Effectiveness Review of Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS). This workstream aims to draw lessons from the operational experience of different CLMRS approaches. The findings help practitioners better understand how CLMRS can be made more effective in terms of preventing, identifying, remediating and withdrawing children from child labour, while at the same time building local capacity, and ensuring sustainability, local ownership and alignment to government systems.

As part of the last phase of this review, ICI conducted an in-depth analysis of data emerging from different CLMRS (find the report here). The data suggested that community members trained as monitoring agents are slightly more likely to identify cases of child labour when they visit families outside of their own communities than within their own communities. There are many possible interpretations of this finding, and the data generated by the CLMRS do not allow to understand why we see this pattern and under which circumstances it occurs. ICI is therefore conducting a follow-up study to examine the question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of appointing local community members as CLMRS monitoring agents?

In this context, ICI is seeking a consultant to conduct qualitative research, to include the following elements:

• Qualitative semi-structured interviews with at least 25 CLMRS monitoring agents under at least 4 different CLMRS, in at least 2 different regions of Ghana. At least 5-10 monitoring agents should be female. The agents should be sampled from different projects including projects where ICI is only providing technical support.
• Questions to be addressed in these interviews (to be developed further):
  Does the agents feel it is easier, or more difficult, to talk about child labour with cocoa farmers you know personally? Why? What exactly is easier?
  Are there other aspects that make the job easier or more difficult in the agent’s own community as compared to other communities?
  Does the agent feel that farmers talk openly about their children’s engagement in farm work, and are there differences depending how well they know them?
• Qualitative semi-structured interviews with at least 40 farmers monitored under a CLMRS; under at least 4 different CLMRS, in at least 2 different regions of Ghana. 20 of the farmers (10 women, 10 men, from different households) should be in communities where the CF is living within the community; and 20 (10 women, 10 men) should be farmers monitored by a CF outside of their communities
• Questions to be addressed in these interviews (to be developed further):
  Is it easier, or more difficult, for the farmer to talk about child labour with cocoa farmers you know personally? Why? What exactly is easier? Does the farmer have a different level of trust when the agent requests to talk to other family members, incl. children, depending on whether the agent is a member of the community? How did the farmer perceive the awareness raising session the agent may have conducted in the community / in the household?
• The samples will be selected by ICI and the consultant will be supported in finding and contacting respondents. ICI will also guide the development of the data collection tools, in collaboration with the consultant.

Timeframe

Data collection must be completed between January and February 2022.

Deadline for applications: 9 January, 2022

Deliverables

The consultant will be responsible for providing the following deliverables:

• A table of overview of all interviews conducted  (time and location of the interview, name and role of respondent and interviewer, questionnaire used)
• A description of the method of data analysis
• A summary report with all key findings on the predefined research questions