Invest for Jobs, an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has launched a project with Touton aimed at revamping the Ghanaian cocoa industry.
The project-Cocoa Jobs for Organic Integrated and Improved Rural Economy’ will promote Ghana’s organic and climate-smart cocoa production value chain in line with the country’s-Ghana Green Jobs Strategy of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.
It will also create some 1600 green jobs in the Ghanaian cocoa sector at the time the country is being faced with excruciating unemployment challenges. Currently, young people between the ages of 15-24 in Ghana are out of school and out of these 27 per cent are unemployed with only 5 per cent working in the cocoa sector.
GIZ and its partners including Touton have therefore sought to address this growing unemployment problem with the ‘Cocoa Jobs for Organic Integrated and Improved Rural Economy’ project—a targeted intervention to explore the expansive and potential opportunities offered by the cocoa value chain with a special focus on organic cocoa.
Beyond revamping the sector for greater and better yields, the project further seeks to encourage young people within the cocoa-growing communities to pick up key opportunities that the industry offers to eventually take over from older farmers.
Speaking at a short ceremony in Accra to launch the partnership between Invest for Jobs and Touton, Gerald Guskowski, Head of Programme for the Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation at GIZ Ghana, said an amount of €727,500 will be invested in the project from 2021 to 2023.
“All this is geared towards increasing the quantity and quality of cocoa beans sourced from Ghana which will lead to further investments by the company. This cooperation is expected to promote investment and to create 1600 decent jobs for the local Ghanaian economy by the end of 2023,” he stated.
Country Manager of Touton Ghana, Ernest Dwamena, added: “Huge opportunities exist for youth and women to deliver on- and off-farm goods and services. Improved employment opportunities within the cocoa subsector will ensure reduction in rural-urban migrations, improved incomes for the households leading to improved health while also empowering youth and women and protecting the rights of children.”
