Protecting the rights of children in the Shea Supply Chain in West Africa

About this project

The first phase of the project entailed a research to identify potential risks and causes of child labour in the shea sector. The research focused on the shea chain in West Africa: the harvesting, washing, drying, grinding, processing and transportation of the nuts. Contrary to big commercial coffee and cocoa plantations, shea nuts only grow naturally. And the harvesting is done almost exclusively by women. This research was carried out in in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, and determined follow-up recommendations and proposed actions for the second phase in which five identified possible root causes, like existing cultural norms, of child labour will be addressed.Four large international companies active in the shea industry, Bunge, Fuji Europe Africa, Wilmar/Olenex and AAK together with West African non-governmental organisations (NGOs), PAS (Ghana), a to be selected Burkinabe NGO and Cordaid form the consortium.The consortium will jointly develop and implement a strategy to address the causes and reduce the risk of child labour in two pilot areas in Ghana and in Burkina as well. Tackling child labour can only be done effectively if all stakeholders in an area (e.g. large international companies, governments and civil society organizations) work together in close collaboration with the communities were shea is harvested, and share learnings from the pilot activities. This strategy of cooperation will be followed in all the pilots in the two countries.This project supports co…

Published by

Netherlands Enterprise Agency · Government

Countries

Burkina Faso, Ghana

Sectors

Industrial crops/export crops

Funded by

Netherlands Enterprise Agency

Implemented by

Fuji Oil Ghana Ltd., Presbytarian Agricultural Services (PAS), Stichting Cordaid, Ghana Specialty Fats industries Limited (= Wilmar Ghana), Fuji Europe Africa B.V., AAK Burkina Faso SARL, KI Ghana Ltd (= AAK Ghana), Olenex Holdings B.V., AAK Netherlands B.V., Bunge Loders Croklaan Ghana Limited, AAK Mali SARL, Bunge Loders Croklaan B.V., Bunge Loders Crocklaan Ghana Limited

Accountable

Netherlands Enterprise Agency

Published by Netherlands Enterprise Agency to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), last updated 7 Jul 2026 and imported automatically. IATI identifier: NL-KVK-27378529-FBK21S04AB.

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