Our three core activities are informing civil society, research & publications, and advocacy.
Informing Civil Society
Our first priority is to ensure that our members – and also broader civil society – are informed about current events in the cocoa sector, are aware of each other’s activities, and through this can increase their effectiveness, synergies and alignment.
We hold monthly calls with our members, and quarterly calls with a broader group of interesting civil society organisations. We also regularly host workshops and meetings bringing civil society and farmer based organisations together.
Research & Publications
Discussions around living income, value distribution, farm-gate prices, deforestation, child labor, transparency, monitoring, and many others were initially brought to the table by VOICE and its members.
Our members’ publications comprise some of the most important reports on how to make cocoa sustainable. Voice regularly helps all its members with their cocoa-focused work, providing expertise and support as needed, at crucial moments.
Our flagship publication is the biennial Cocoa Barometer, a ‘State of Sustainability’ overview of the whole cocoa sector. In addition, we regularly publish position papers on topical subjects. Our latest publications are
- Position paper on Necessary Farm Gate Prices for a Living Income
- Position paper on the value of certification in cocoa.
- Position paper on the new Living Income Differential.
Advocacy
A core part of VOICE’s activity is to engage in advocacy: raising the voice and concerns of the underprivileged, and addressing blind spots and underrepresented issues in the value chain. As such, we play a key role in a variety of global cocoa sustainability dialogues. VOICE and our members are driving forces behind the global cocoa dialogue around living income, child labour, deforestation, and human rights and environmental due diligence.
VOICE’s actively participates in a variety of global conversations around all major global cocoa platforms, such as the International Cocoa Organisation, the World Cocoa Foundation and the International Cocoa Initiative.
VOICE and its members are often invited speakers to all the major cocoa events including the World Cocoa Conferences, Chocovision, the annual WCF Partnership Meetings, Chocoa, the Salon du Chocolat, etc.
In addition, VOICE is in continuous bilateral dialogue with almost all of the major global chocolate industry players; chocolate manufacturers, traders and grinders, standards bodies, producing and consuming governments, the EU, etc.