Briefing 3: New EU and UK regulations on deforestation-free commodities – A lever for change in the cocoa sector in Ghana?
The EUDR and UK Environment Act can encourage law reform and governance
improvements in Ghana’s cocoa sector. In particular, the EUDR’s producer country benchmarking may incentivise Ghana to improve forest governance. For Ghana’s own benefit and since a robust traceability system is needed to comply with EUDR requirements, there’s an opportunity for Ghana to strengthen its national centralised traceability system, ensuring transparency, consistent approach, and ownership of
information flow. In addition, the development of non-exhaustive lists of national and sub-national laws would facilitate due diligence requirements of operators, enforcement controls for competent authorities in Member states and initiate legal and institutional reforms where areas of complexity, ambiguity, or contradiction are identified. The EUDR also presents Ghana with the opportunity to incorporate the Hazardous Activity Framework into legislation, outlining permissible and non-permissible work for children
in various sectors, including cocoa and to strengthen its policy approach to eliminating child labour from cocoa farms. While the regulations don’t directly address cocoa bean pricing or farmer livelihoods, their implementation may have indirect impacts. Partnerships and cooperation mechanisms are crucial to supporting smallholder farmers and assessing the regulations’ impact. Collaboration between the EU, Ghana, and civil society is necessary for effective implementation and to address both consumer-led and
national causes of deforestation and poverty in Ghana’s coca supply chain.
Area of focus: Cocoa
Author(s): Dennis Martey, Clement Kojo Akapame, Raphaëlle Godts, Caroline Haywood
Organisation/institution: ClientEarth