TRECC – Transforming Education in Côte d’Ivoire

Education is key to the well-being of the population.

Côte d’Ivoire is by far the world’s largest producer of cocoa, accounting for nearly 40 percent of global production. But poverty is widespread, and most of the small farmers in cocoa-growing regions can neither read nor write. Only one third of Ivorian children receive education during ten years or more, the rest drop out before that. Yet education is key to the well-being of the rural population.

Seeking to improve the living conditions of Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa farmers and their children, the Jacobs Foundation is working with public and private organizations to develop a sustainable ecosystem that will ensure access to quality education. Education begins at home, with the parents, in early childhood. It continues at school, as children learn basic skills such as reading and writing. They subsequently acquire the socio-emotional skills that are crucial for success in the labor market. The Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities (TRECC) program offers a variety of solutions for each of these stages in life.

By empowering the government, our industry partners and local organizations, we are also seeking to ensure that rural communities have access to quality education after the involvement of the Jacobs Foundation has come to an end.

Three factors are helpful for the implementation of TRECC:

  • the high priority the Ivorian government gives to improving educational opportunities for the country’s children and youth;
  • unprecedented joint efforts by the cocoa and chocolate industries to improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers ; and
  • innovative solutions developed by civil society organizations and social entrepreneurs to advance quality education

Components of the program

  • Partnership with the Cocoa and Chocolate Industry

    With TRECC, the Jacobs Foundation entered into a strategic partnership with the industry-wide platform CocoaAction. CocoaAction, which is coordinated by the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), was created by the 11 leading companies in the cocoa industry to improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers, thus also securing the long-term production of cocoa. Through CocoaAction, these companies have undertaken to ensure access to training, better crop plants and fertilizer for some 300,000 cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana by the year 2020. Efforts are also being made to strengthen these farmers’ communities by promoting education, supporting women and protecting children.

    No Sustainability Without Education – USD 52 Million for an Educational Program in West Africa

    Grantmatching Mechanism
    What happens when the world’s four largest cocoa and chocolate companies and an international child and youth development foundation join forces? Nothing less than achieving measurable impact through community development and education in Côte d’Ivoire with an innovative partnership of pioneering character for the entire industry and beyond. Under the roof of the Jacobs Foundation’s Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities (TRECC) program, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, Barry Callebaut, and Mars will reach out to at least 16,000 children and youth and 72,000 adults over the next three years to provide quality education, empower women and assure child labour remediation. The four industry partners jointly invested CHF 5 million on top of their broader commitments under CocoaAction, and the Jacobs Foundation will match the companies’ investments with CHF 3.78 million when project goals are achieved.

    Beyond business as usual: joint forces to achieve real impact in education and community development

    Grantmatching Mechanism at a glance (EN)

    New international Initiative under the roof of TRECC
    The world’s largest cocoa and chocolate companies have joined an international child and youth development program with the goal of transforming education in rural communities. These innovative partnerships launched in 2018 will achieve measurable impact by improving quality of education and enhancing its relevance within industry sustainability strategies.

    New international Initiative under the roof of TRECC

  • Cooperation with the Government

    In the presence of the Ivorian Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan and Lavinia Jacobs, Chair of the Board of Trustees, a delegation of the Jacobs Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on advancing the quality of education in Côte d’Ivoire. In this MoU, both parties reaffirm their determination to improve the living conditions of the population by providing high-quality schooling and education for children and youth.

     

    Ivorian Government and Jacobs Foundation to Advance Quality of Education

  • Impact Investment

    Edves wins 2018 Transforming Education Prize

    Edves wins Transforming Education Prize

    I&P, Comoé Capital, and the Jacobs Foundation are launching a new impact fund dedicated to education in Côte d’Ivoire, the Education Impact Fund (EIF). The fund will provide financial and managerial support to Ivoirian start-ups and small enterprises with strong impact on the quality and accessibility of education in the country.

    Read the the full Media Release

    Chalkboard
    Chalkboard Education, a Ghana-based mobile learning company, receives EUR 200’000 to further develop its business activities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, including increasing access to its mobile learning tools for rural and remote populations.

    Mobile Learning Made Easy

    TRECC has partnered with Seedstars World to offer the Transforming Education Prize
    The Transforming Education Prize of 50,000 USD will be awarded to the most promising start-up with solutions to improve education in primary schools in low resource environments.

    TRECC and Seedstars World Offer the Transforming Education Prize

    Seedstars
    Edtech startup wins Transforming Education Prize

    Asafeer Education Technologies wins the Transforming Education Prize, worth 50,000 Swiss francs, offered by TRECC. The company from Dubai provides schools with online digital resources for reading focused on enhancing literacy.

    Edtech Startup Wins Transforming Education Prize

  • Engagement

    Under a new partnership arrangement, TRECC will build the International Cocoa Initiative’s (ICI) internal capabilities to innovate, test, define and evolve good practices in tackling child labor through improving quality of education and promoting children’s rights in cocoa communities. It will reinforce a comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation function and will help train ICI’s staff and partners across various disciplines.

    Driving collective learning processes

  • Further components

    Further components on the TRECC Website

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