The FTGN’s team together with two (2) National Technical Advisors of Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF), and a representative of Fair Trade Africa-West Africa Network (FTA-WAN) left the shores of Ghana on the 13th of March, 2022 for the meeting. A total of 34 participants from six (6) countries; Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cote d’voire, France, and Kenya were present for this meeting. These participants included representatives from Fair trade France (CEF), AVSF, French Development Agency (AFD), Fair trade National platforms, Fairtrade Africa, Fairtrade African- West Africa Network, and Fairtrade certification bodies (WFTO, SPP, Bio partner, Ecocert).

The objectives of the meeting were; to share the results of the activities of the 2nd year of the project, present the major timelines for the implementation of the project activities in 2022, and to strengthen synergies between steering committee members and the Equity project. There were scheduled presentations and discussion of activities on all days except on Wednesday, the 16th of March 2022, where participants went on a field visit to a cocoa cooperative in a community called Kpadape, and to two cocoa buying companies; Scoops Procab and Fiprocat. The program came to an end on the fifth day with a closing ceremony. All meetings were held in Kpalime, one of the five regions in Togo except for the closing day’s activity which was held in Lome, the national capital.

The FTGN team had the opportunity to obtain first-hand information of the Equity project, its progress and challenges. The meeting was also an opportunity for all the national fair trade platforms to learn from one another. FTGN also had the opportunity to understand better the activities of the certification labels present and to also have personal conversations with their representatives for collaborative purposes.
In addition, the team got to understand clearly the proposed joint advocacy activities in the Cocoa sector for the Ghana and Cote d’voire national fair trade platforms FTGN and RICE respectively and of the ‘Capacity building financial management and access to financing project’ which was to be implemented by John Doss Consult from April 2022.