Entry: Ethan Budiansky, World Cocoa Foundation

Last week, CLP program coordinator, Ethan Budiansky, traveled to Cote d’Ivoire to meet with CLP partners and hold the bi-annual technical planning meeting. Accompanied by the CLP director, Mbalo Ndiaye and other staff from the Accra office, Ethan helped facilitate the two-day meeting which brings together all of the partners within the CLP program to discuss ‘in the field’ activities, progress and challenges, monitoring and evaluation, and new changes to the program. This is also an opportunity for partners to work towards better overall coordination. Over thirty-five people participated in the meeting including industry partners, technical partners, recipients of the CLP challenge and research grants (who gave presentations on their research) and our newest partner, the Ghana Cocoa Board.