The International Cocoa Verification Board (ICVB) has a mission of affirming the credibility of the certification process carried out by the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana on the worst forms of child labour, including trafficking, and adult labour practices in the cocoa sector. To fulfill this mission, the ICVB contracted Khulisa and partner organisation Fafo AIS to conduct a verification of these studies.

Khulisa's activities included:

  1. Documenting and examining the methodology used for the studies by the respective government agencies in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana and ascertaining the validity and reliability of the findings reported in the studies.
  2. Conducting representative sub-sample surveys in the communities covered in the certification studies, further informed by a data quality audit (DQA), to verify the results and the conclusions in the study reports in line with the objectives of the studies as set out by the two governments.
  3. Utilising time in-country to identify, observe and verify planned and existing remediation activities.
  4. Preparing recommendations based on the review of the earlier four surveys and the results of the representative sample survey, indicating whether there will be a need for any other surveys in the future and if so, how they may be improved – especially in terms of their cost effectiveness and overall efficiency.