The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat and the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI) are exploring a strategic partnership aimed at strengthening the cocoa sector through value addition, sustainability, and regional trade integration.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene met with CIGCI Executive Secretary Alex Assanvo to discuss how the two institutions can collaborate to attract investment into Africa’s cocoa value chain and promote inclusive growth across the continent’s cocoa-producing regions.
The discussions focused on leveraging AfCFTA’s continental market to catalyse industrialisation within the cocoa sector, particularly by enhancing local processing capacity, improving resilience, and promoting sustainable practices. With Africa accounting for over 70% of global cocoa production but capturing only a small fraction of the industry’s value, both institutions view regional collaboration as key to reversing this trend.
The meeting also underscored the need to deepen cross-border partnerships that can drive policy alignment, facilitate intra-African trade in cocoa products, and ensure cocoa producers benefit more meaningfully from global market opportunities.The AfCFTA-CIGCI engagement forms part of broader efforts to shift Africa’s cocoa economies from raw commodity exporters to competitive producers of semi-finished and finished cocoa products.
Relatively, Bright Simons of Ghana has also noted that despite Ghana’s position as second largest cocoa producer, its processors struggle to access beans. This further calls for the need to strategise the cocoa industry to meet demands locally and internationally.
