Digitalization of Ghana’s cocoa value chain management

Background: Cocoa is Ghana’s second major exporting good, generating significant revenue for the economy. However, in recent years, a lack of infrastructure and financial capacity has hindered the development of Ghana's cocoa sector. In 2011, a collaboration between the World Cocoa Foundation and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) sought to create creative ways of tackling this issue by introducing cost-effective procedures that improve farmer extension services. The Hershey Company supported the CocoaLink initiative, which employed mobile phone technology to send cocoa-specific agronomic information, allowing farmers to request and acquire timely agricultural and marketing information.

Solution: Bewsys was contracted to evaluate the capacity and performance of the CocoaLink platform, as well as to examine growth needs and capacity building for their IT team. They also conducted secondary research to obtain a better understanding of the system requirements, system features, and functions for the project. 

Impact‍: This initiative has been sustainable because the information gathered from the research has helped to implement policies that are in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 1(no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 8 (decent work and economic growth), and 15 (life on land). This also led to the fulfilment of the software and capacity-building needs of the CocoaLink platform which has seen an increase in yields by farmers.