encouraging sustainable, responsible cocoa growing

Entry: Kwasi Bosompem, Let's Go Africa Foundation

Throughout the world, people can find incidences of poverty; situations where average parents struggle to put food on the table and pay for their children’s education. In rural sectors of the developing and developed world, children work with their parents on farms to help support family income and to learn about growing crops.

Growing up in Akim Oda, a small town in Eastern Region in Ghana, farming was a household duty. My father's cocoa farm occupied about 2 to 3 acres. Every Saturday, the pleasure and joy to work and have fun under the cocoa tree was a day that no child in the family wanted to miss. At an early age of ten years old, our Saturday mornings in the cocoa farms was nothing different from the eight year old kids that I see on Saturdays at a local mall helping their parents with the family t-shirt selling business.

Unfortunately, not all the kids in my village were fortunate like myself, some came from very poor households and did not go to school but had to work all week to support the family.

The bigger picture and problem in Africa, is the informal sector in cities and towns where children sell items on the streets to support themselves and their families, instead of attending school. Based on my experiences, this problem can be found in places such as Accra, Ghana, Lagos, Nigeria and parts of Johannesburg, South Africa. The situation is even worse in other unstable economies in Africa.

In order to address issues of poverty, investments are needed by the public and private sectors. If organized properly, these investments can provide jobs, schools, roads and health facilities to needy populations.

The chocolate industry’s investments are needed and welcomed by African countries. Africa can be a risky place to invest, but many of these companies have taken the risk to make profits and at the same time to sustain the local economies, resources and social investment programs.

Governments play an important role in providing a safe and transparent environment for the private sector to operate. Government should reinvest resources back into community development efforts. The combined efforts of “public-private partnerships” is the best path to encourage meaningful, and sustainable development.

It is clear that Christian Parenti does not understand this. His comments seem to me to really miss any understanding of Africa. I hope he can spend more time on the continent in the future so he can really learn about what he seems to have missed on his last trip.

Kwasi Bosompem was born in Ghana and is the founder of Let's Go Africa Foundation, a nonprofit group promoting partnership and providing educational services for the disadvantaged population groups who have interest in Africa.