2016 Executive Summary, Nestlé Cocoa Supply Chain, Côte d’Ivoire

As part of the annual assessment of its affiliate members, the FLA since 2013 has conducted monitoring visits in Nestlé’s traced cocoa supply chain in Côte d’Ivoire. The FLA Independent External Monitoring (IEM) program covers a growing portion of Nestlé’s cocoa supply chain served by the Nestlé Cocoa Plan (NCP), which represents about 35 percent of its total cocoa supply chain as of the end of 2016 as reported by Nestlé.  In 2016, the FLA conducted IEMs in four cooperatives that had never been assessed before and conducted an Independent External Verification (IEV) in one cooperative that was previously assessed in 2014. The objective of IEV visits is to assess the progress of the company’s Corrective Action Plan (CAP) implementation and report the plan’s results at the field level.

The report summarizes 2016 assessment findings and the company’s responses and notes the progress and remaining gaps in remediation of issues found during previous assessments in 2014 and 2015. The FLA’s key findings in its 2016 assessments compared to 2014 and 2015 findings showed progress in many areas of the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct, such as a lower rate of reported child labor cases, and increased Code and good practices awareness among farmers. The assessments also revealed persistent issues related to the age-verification process, communication of workplace rules to workers, gaps in the grievance mechanisms provided, involvement of child and young family workers without respecting the special conditions, and issues related to chemical management and machinery safety. The assessment team highlighted a notable feature in the San Pedro area where assessors did not report any child labor case in Nestlé’s supplying cooperative despite the fact that this area remains very high-risk in terms of child labor. The Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) implemented in this cooperative since 2015 already seems to yield very positive results.

The IEV findings showed progress on Code awareness training for cooperative staff and farmers, successful child labor removal and remediation, and health and safety policy and procedures development, while other issues like Code awareness training among workers and family members, communication of health and safety procedures, and maintenance of premium payment records for farmers still require improvement.