Côte d’Ivoire remains the leading cocoa producer in the world, despite the crisis experienced over the last years. If the country could be proud of this leadership position in the international market, it should not be ignored what must be undertaken to preserve, and mostly to strengthen it. In other words, an appropriate perception and management is mandatory regarding the challenges bound to our cocoa economy.

It is within this framework that this current presentation brings a glimpse on the certification issue regarding the child labor issue in the cocoa sector. This issue determines directly our presence in the U.S. market, a market which consumes one third of our national production.

The presentation will set up the context and introduce the basic concepts, as well as focus on the mechanism of the certification, and finally present the difficulties arisen during the implementation process, the incurred threats, and the conclusion.