ILO builds the capacity of agricultural and labour administration experts on the participatory action-oriented approach in Soubré

The ILO's Accelerating Action for the Elimination of Child Labour (Accel Africa) project conducted a training workshop to build the capacity of agricultural experts and labour administrators on the participatory action-oriented approach to better protect cocoa farmers from occupational accidents and diseases through the WIND approach successfully implemented in three communities in the Mbatto cocoa growing area.

Article | 16 May 2021
Farmers and producers on cocoa sites face particularly difficult working and living conditions
The arduousness of their tasks, particularly the handling of heavy loads, the use of sharp tools in weeding and harvesting pods, the spraying of phytosanitary products with the absence of personal protective equipment, and the weakness of their productive capacity constitute major obstacles to their competitiveness on the labour market.

The training of trainers aims to ensure the sustainability of occupational health and safety (OHS) awareness-raising activities on cocoa production sites.

The application of OSH principles through the WIND approach helps to reduce the incidence of hazardous work and household vulnerability which are two of the causes of child labour. It is therefore an approach to combat child labour.

This network of actors, made up of technical actors in OHS, will then be able to conduct WIND workshops for peer trainers and do regular follow-ups on cocoa production sites in order to promote continuous improvements in working conditions and increased productivity,'' explains Dr. COULIBALY Fanyeriba of the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection and resource person for this activity.

The work of the workshop serves in particular to extend the protection of safety and health at work in the agricultural sector and to contribute to the promotion of a preventive culture in the workplace.

The training aims to improve working conditions and increase productivity in cocoa sites by promoting the use of the WIND programme's practical awareness tools based on a participatory action-oriented approach (PAOT) by agricultural experts.

The WIND approach is based on a participatory action-oriented approach (PAOT) created by the ILO in 1981 which helps to ensure the awareness of peer trainers in the application of practical OHS tools on cocoa sites,'' explains Euphrem Ndepo, National Coordinator of the Accel Africa project in Côte d'Ivoire.

This programme aims to encourage and assist farmers to take voluntary and low-cost measures to improve working conditions and at the same time increase productivity," Mr. Ndepo continued.

This network of actors, made up of technical actors in OHS, will then be able to conduct WIND workshops for peer trainers and do regular follow-ups on cocoa production sites in order to promote continuous improvements in working conditions and increased productivity
The training workshop brought together some 15 experts from the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Coffee and Cocoa Council, the National Agency for Rural Development Support and the International Labour Office.

The workshops resulted in a roadmap for the implementation of training activities and monitoring of OSH improvements.

In each region, the participants in the training workshops drew up a roadmap for future cascade training for peer trainers in the cocoa sites in Mbatto and Soubré (Grand-Zattry).