Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo has acknowledged African Development Bank (AfDB) and Credit Suisse Group for a package that will enable Ghana and Cote D’lvoire to “transform the cocoa sector by scaling up the value chain with warehousing and processing facilities”.

The Ghana COCOBOD has received $600m syndicated load from the African Development Bank and Credit Suisse Group AG to finance the country’s Cocoa sector through productivity enhancement programmes.

With Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire responsible for 65% of the world’s output of cocoa, and with the global chocolate industry worth some $100 billion industry, the President noted that it is not right that the farmers, whose labour and toil are responsible for growing the cocoa, get only some $6 billion for their effort.

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“Very fortunately for me, the Ivorian leader, Alassane Ouattara, had the same point of view as myself. We found out that we have a mutual assessment of what was the reality, and the need for us to do something about this arithmetic, and change the dynamics of the industry for our farmers,” he said.

That is why the production and marketing policies of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, i.e. COCOBOD and Conseil du Café-Cacao, through the Strategic Partnership, have merged their production and marketing policies, and are now entering the market at a certain basic floor price in order to increase the earnings of our farmers.

At the same time, the noted it is critical to find a mechanism to scale up the value chain production of Ghanaian cocoa farmers and the industry, “and that where AfDB came in, and led the process together with Credit Suisse, and put this package together that will enable us undertake the process of transformation, and scaling up the value chain with warehousing and processing facilities.”

The approach was to alter the cocoa industry was initiated by the president of Ghana and Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank. The discussions and subsequent follow up meetings concluded on Tuesday’s signing ceremony, which will ensure that COCOBOD implements production, warehousing and processing interventions, with the ultimate aim of boosting farmers’ incomes, and adding value to Ghana’s cocoa beans.

The presentation took place at the 2nd Edition of the African Investment Forum on Tuesday, 12 th November, 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa witnessed by the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo.

In delivering this facility, the African Development Bank has acted as the mandated, lead arranger with a tranche of $250 million, and Credit Suisse arranging the commercial tranche of up to $350 million, with ICBC acting as joint underwriter.

The end result of all of this, President Akufo-Addo was confident, will be a considerable enhancement of the incomes of cocoa farmers.