IITA

ABOUT STCP

APPROACH & STRATEGY

Program Goals and Objectives

The goal of STCP is "to improve the economic and social well being of smallholders and the environmental sustainability of tree crop farms." The ultimate vision of this program is to improve the rural livelihood of cocoa producers in West Africa by improving their ability to respond to the demands of global markets.

The objective of the STCP regional program and its national pilot projects in West Africa is to compare, test, and validate different approaches and interventions to develop socially responsible, profitable and environmentally sound cocoa production systems, which will concurrently address child labor concerns.

Program Structure

The STCP program structure will consist of a comprehensive and integrated regional program in five West African countries - Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria. To accomplish the program's goals, seven national community-focused pilot projects -- three in Cote d'Ivoire, and one in each other country are being implemented. These pilot projects will be serviced by three regional projects: (1) Child Labor, (2) Trade and Information Systems, and (3) Technology Delivery, Research and Impact.

The program will be operational under a Regional Program Management Unit hosted within the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture's Humid Forest Ecoregional Center in Yaoundé, Cameroon, with a National Pilot Project Manager in each of the 5 countries reporting through the regional unit. ILO/IPEC will host and manage the regional project on Child Labor. The diagram below shows the overall framework for the STCP Regional Program and includes the three crosscutting Regional Projects and seven Community-based Pilot Projects.

projects diagram
STCP Results Framework and Program Components

To achieve the vision of the STCP program, a Results Framework was developed and agreed. The top level of the STCP Results Framework is shown below.

framework diagram


To accomplish these results, the STCP community-focused Pilot Projects were designed to include activities from the following four program components as agreed by the program partners:
  • Strengthening community-focused groups,
  • Technical package dissemination,
  • Trade and information system development, and
  • Child labor interventions.

As described earlier, the Pilot Projects will be serviced by three Regional Projects to support the development and execution of these field components.

Program Linkages

The STCP West African Regional Program will link with a variety of partners, both at the national, regional and the global level. STCP will link with the ILO/IPEC West Africa Cocoa Agricultural Project (WACAP), which will operate, as feasible and applicable, in the same geographical areas as the STCP Program, but be managed by the ILO/IPEC program staff. There will be coordination in the planning and implementing of child labor activities between ILO and STCP; both programs are planned for a 3-year period. In addition, the WACAP project will have linkages with the ILO Trafficking project.

Other STCP linkages are being developed with the SOCODEVI program in Cote d'Ivoire, which is helping to build capacity in 17 farmer organizations and cooperatives there. This project, which is being funded in part by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), is in line with the STCP vision. Given the broad outreach of the STCP program, it is envisioned that other concrete linkages will be identified and elaborated through further consultations.