Our partners are eager to make a difference through meaningful investments, but many find it difficult to identify where and how to start. Through the Rainforest Alliance Field Based Partnerships (FBP) service, companies gain access to global experts ready to identify investment opportunities and impactful strategies that will bring you closer to your sourcing goals.
By working at both the local and regional level, the FBP unit can pinpoint where and how your actions can generate the most impact. At the local level, our work facilitates stakeholder collaboration to achieve alignment on risks and goals. The FBP unit also monitors regional level trends and activities to flag areas for intervention. Our thematic and regional experts help you co-design and implement interventions designed to deliver impact and catalyze change.
Our Projects: From wider landscapes to your supply chain
The Rainforest Alliance FBP team has played a critical role in supporting wider Rainforest Alliance initiatives, such as the Sustainable Landscape Projects in the Juabeso region of Ghana, and the Integrated Landscape Management Program. But we also work one-on-one with individual companies to address challenges within their supply chains. Take for example our work with Unilever and Cargill to combat child labor in the West African cocoa sector.
Service Spotlight: Child Labor in the West African Cocoa Sector
The Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program’s “assess and address” approach to addressing child labor reflects the growing recognition that combating child labor requires active, and ongoing engagement on the ground. In 2019, with funding from RVO, Unilever and Cargill partnered with the Rainforest Alliance to enhance and expand existing child labor monitoring and remediation systems (CLMRS) in Cote d’Ivoire.
The goal of this partnership is to equip 9 cooperatives in Cote d’Ivoire with the tools, knowledge, and resources to effectively identify, address, and prevent cases of child labor. In addition to establishing and improving cooperative driven CLMRS to include wider human rights issues and work on prevention, the partnership is also aiming to provide targeted interventions that focus on income diversification and opportunities for women and youth. The 3-year project aims to reach 5,200 cocoa producing households.
The Rainforest Alliance is working with local and international partners to monitor child labor practices in the selected cooperatives and focuses on capacity building and prevention activities. Prevention activities include improving community livelihoods, improving access to quality education, monitoring of child labor risks and practices as well as awareness raising through training at the household, cooperative, and community level. The expected long-term outcomes of the project are:
- The joint operation of a CLMRS between international and national supply chain actors to effectively assess and address child labor; and
- The strengthening of the capacity and livelihood strategies of households to support children’s development and education to prevent child labor.
The Field Based Partnerships team is responsible for assisting project management and monitoring and evaluation to track the progress and effectiveness of CLMRS and accompanying interventions within the cooperatives.
Work with us
Our Field Based Partnerships service reflects the growing recognition that certification alone is not sufficient to tackle the systemic challenges in producer communities and landscapes. Through this service we guide and facilitate additional field-based interventions that focus on solutions to achieve long-lasting change at scale.
In addition to our ongoing work the Unilever and Cargill, we are also working with coffee actors to develop a regenerative agriculture scorecard and with several cocoa brands on living income projects.
Working together, we can help you meet your responsible sourcing commitments in a way that supports local communities and the natural environment.