Empowering women for more sustainable cocoa communities

Most people agree that women’s empowerment is a good thing. But what does women’s empowerment actually mean for development interventions, and how will we know when it has been achieved?

These are questions that Ipsos and the Mondelēz Cocoa Life program have been considering together. As Cocoa Life promotes women’s empowerment across all key intervention areas, the Ipsos- Mondelēz Cocoa Life evaluation team has delved into how and why interventions impact local women, and how the whole community can be affected by programs that target women’s empowerment.

Women’s empowerment doesn’t typically progress in a linear fashion. Women do not simply become empowered by receiving training or access to new platforms. Structural societal issues and norms must be addressed. This takes time, and progress happens at different rates in different places, according to local contexts and circumstances – in this case, cocoa growing communities around the world.

For more information, read our report on empowering women in cocoa communities. This report features first insight into data collected across cocoa farming households, indicative of the status of the “Arenas of Empowerment” to learn more about women in cocoa communities.

For more information about the Cocoa Life impact assessment methodology, please download our methodology factsheet.