TDC’s Support for Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence in African Agri-Food Chains

Introduction: fostering sustainable trade

In the landscape of modern global commerce, Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) has become a critical pillar for building resilient and responsible supply chains. This is particularly true for Africa’s vital agricultural sectors, including cocoa ans coffee, which are increasingly required to meet stringent international standards to maintain market access. Navigating this complex regulatory and ethical environment presents a significant challenge for producer organisations and smallholder farmers who form the foundation of these value chains.

The Trade for Development Centre (TDC), a programme of the Belgian development agency Enabel, is well positioned to address this challenge. TDC’s core mission is to strengthen the first links of production chains by promoting environmental sustainability, ensuring decent work, and championing the respect for human rights. Through a framework of targeted interventions, TDC empowers producer organisations and the business support ecosystem around them to not only comply with new requirements but also to leverage them as a catalyst for sustainable growth and improved livelihoods.

This report details TDC’s integrated approach to fostering HREDD readiness. It will first examine the programme’s core support mechanisms – tailored coaching and strategic grant financing – which form the backbone of its assistance. It will then explore the tangible impact of these interventions across key thematic areas, including compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the pursuit of a living income, and the promotion of climate-smart agriculture. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of TDC’s framework for building more equitable and sustainable agri-food chains.

1. TDC’s HREDD support framework: coaching and grants

The Trade for Development Centre delivers its HREDD support through two primary and complementary mechanisms: intensive, tailored coaching programmes and strategic grant financing. These interventions are designed to build both the technical capacity and the financial resilience of producer organisations (POs) and the business support organisations (BSOs) that assist them, ensuring that sustainability principles are deeply embedded in their operational and strategic management.

1.1. Tailored coaching programmes

TDC’s coaching methodology is distinguished by its participatory, pragmatic, and customised nature. Rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all solution, the coaching is delivered through a series of five intensive modules spread over several years. This long-term engagement ensures that sustainability practices are not merely adopted but are deeply integrated into the organisation’s culture and processes, fostering genuine ownership of the results by the beneficiaries themselves.

1.1.1. Coaching for MSMEs and producer organisations

The HREDD coaching for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and producer organisations is designed to equip them with the tools and knowledge to navigate the complexities of modern supply chains. The key objectives of this support include:

• Mastering sustainable standards: guiding organisations to adopt and master voluntary standards and certifications that align with European regulations.
• Assessing social impact: enabling organisations to gain a clearer view of their impact on the incomes of their members and their families.
• Complying with EU requirements: preparing organisations to use data collection and reporting tools in line with European regulatory demands.
• Managing HREDD risks: implementing robust systems for identifying, preventing, monitoring, and remedying key human rights, equality, and environmental risks.

The practical application of this coaching is evident in the experiences of partner cooperatives. For example, the Rwenzori Organic Coffee Farmers Mountain Harvest Cooperative Limited (ROCS) in Uganda developed a comprehensive HREDD action plan following its initial coaching sessions. Similarly, the Coopérative Agricole Tujenge Kivu (CAT Kivu) in the DRC anticipates that the coaching will be instrumental in helping them implement formal grievance mechanisms and the parcel geolocation necessary for enhanced traceability.

1.1.2. Coaching for Business Support Organisations

Recognising the vital role of the broader support ecosystem, TDC provides dedicated coaching to BSOs. The primary objective is to strengthen their institutional capacity, enabling them to effectively guide their member MSMEs in adapting to evolving sustainability standards. The coaching is structured around five core modules that build a comprehensive HREDD support toolkit.

This support is already demonstrating its strategic value. The inaugural coaching session with the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (KEPROBA), held from 13 to 17 October 2025, was designed to outline a project roadmap. The session identified a significant external gap in awareness regarding European regulations like the EUDR within the Kenyan coffee sector. This reinforces KEPROBA’s strategic role in signalling market trends and filling the information gap by disseminating upcoming international supply chain requirements—such as through trade alerts and integrated training—to local exporters.

1.2. Grant financing

Alongside intensive coaching, TDC provides targeted grants that empower organisations to finance the implementation of their sustainability strategies and HREDD action plans. This financial support is a critical enabler, turning capacity building into concrete action on the ground.

1.2.1. Grants for MSMEs and producer organisations

Grants for MSMEs and POs are designed to fund specific projects that advance sustainability goals. The financial parameters are structured to ensure significant impact and partner commitment:

• Grant range: €50,000 to €90,000
• Co-financing: a minimum 10% contribution is required from the beneficiary.
• Project timeline: all subsidised actions must be completed by 30 September 2027.

Funding can be allocated to a diverse range of activities that build social, environmental, and economic resilience. Key fundable areas include:

• Implementing traceability and transparency systems to meet market requirements.
• Support towards decent work, such as establishing Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs).
• Promoting climate-smart agriculture, including agroforestry and organic farming practices.
• Diversification of production to create multiple income streams.

A prime example is the €90,000 grant awarded to the Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU) in Uganda for 2024–2027. The project aims to establish a transparent and traceable value chain and facilitate the payment of the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) to its farmers.

1.2.2. Grants for Business Support Organisations

BSOs can also access TDC grants to develop tools or acquire the know-how needed to guide enterprises in sustainability. The financial parameters for BSO grants include a budget range of €30,000 to €50,000, with the same 10% minimum co-financing requirement.

This support is designed to have a multiplier effect, enabling BSOs to scale their impact across their member networks. For instance, Côte d’Ivoire PME (CI-PME) – an official Ivorian State-owned enterprise dedicated to promoting and supporting start-ups, entrepreneurs, and SMEs – is utilising a €42,660 grant from the TDC. Through the Cocoa Value Chain Actors Support Project (PSAC), this funding enables CI-PME to provide tailored structural support, alongside training and coaching on sustainability, decent work, and human rights, to 60 agricultural SMEs and cooperatives. This creates a powerful framework to help these local actors transition towards modern, sustainable business models capable of exporting to the European market.

This dual framework of capacity building and strategic financing creates a comprehensive support system, enabling partner organisations to translate HREDD knowledge into tangible action and verifiable results.

2. Thematic Focus

2.1. EUDR compliance and traceability

The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) presents a strategic challenge for African agricultural producers, mandating that commodities like cocoa and coffee be traceable and proven to be deforestation-free to access the EU market. The Trade for Development Centre’s support is a critical enabler in this context, providing the capacity building and technical funding necessary for producer organisations to achieve compliance and secure their position in global value chains.

TDC’s coaching directly builds the internal capacity required for EUDR readiness. The experience of the Rwenzori Organic Coffee Farmers Mountain Harvest Cooperative Limited (ROCS) in Uganda provides a clear illustration of this impact. The cooperative is currently undertaking a comprehensive coaching programme designed to integrate environmental sustainability and decent work into its daily management. Through initial data capturing and targeted coaching sessions, ROCS successfully mapped its coffee value chain and identified critical HREDD risks, including deforestation and child labour.

The early results of this intervention are highly tangible. To meet European regulatory requirements, ROCS has established a cleaned farmer registry for EUDR compliance and developed enhanced data collection tools. The cooperative has also strengthened its internal capacity by recruiting a dedicated HREDD focal person and a project coordinator, better positioning them for direct coffee exports. Furthermore, the development of child-friendly policies directly resulting from the coaching enabled ROCS to secure a targeted research activity with Save the Children International in December 2025 to address child labour in the sector.

Complementing this capacity building, TDC grants fund the development of the technical infrastructure essential for robust traceability.

The Cacao Okapi cooperative in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, is using its grant to create an operational database on the Kobotoolbox platform. This system will enable the georeferencing of all member plantations and ensure full product traceability by early 2025, making their cocoa compliant with EUDR requirements.

By combining practical coaching on specific analytical tools with strategic funding for technical infrastructure, TDC’s dual approach provides a comprehensive solution for EUDR readiness, transforming a regulatory hurdle into an opportunity for enhanced transparency and verifiable market competitiveness.

2.2. Advancing living income

A living income—the amount needed for a household to afford a decent standard of living—is a cornerstone of sustainable agriculture and a fundamental component of HREDD. It ensures that farming families can meet their basic needs, invest in their farms, and build resilient livelihoods. TDC’s interventions are designed to address this issue by tackling the Living Income Gap (LIG), the difference between a farmer’s actual income and the living income benchmark, and by promoting the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP), a price that enables farmers to achieve a living income.

TDC provides direct support for achieving living income through its grant funding. A key example is the 2024–2027 project with Uganda’s Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU). A central objective of this €90,000 grant is to “facilitate payment of Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) to coffee farmers,” directly linking financial support to tangible improvements in farmer compensation.

Simultaneously, TDC’s coaching programmes empower organisations to analyse and address income gaps systematically. The coaching provided to the Société Coopérative des Femmes Battantes de Broukro (CAF2B) in Côte d’Ivoire highlights this approach. A core objective for the cooperative is to “master the methodology of calculating the ‘Living Income Gap’ (LIG)” and subsequently develop a formal action plan to reduce this gap. This data-driven approach to income is the essential counterpart to production-focused initiatives like agroforestry and diversification, ensuring that increased yields and new revenue streams translate directly into improved livelihoods.

Securing a living income is a foundational element of HREDD, creating the economic stability that allows communities to invest in long-term social and environmental progress, which is increasingly complemented by innovative financial mechanisms like carbon markets.

2.2.1. Building resilience through production diversification

Production diversification is a cornerstone of economic and environmental resilience for smallholder farmers. By moving away from a dependency on volatile single-commodity markets, farmers can create multiple, stable income streams, enhance household food security, and build more robust agricultural systems. The Trade for Development Centre actively supports a variety of diversification strategies, empowering producers to build more secure and prosperous futures.

TDC-supported projects showcase several distinct and effective approaches to diversification:

• Integrating subsistence and commercial crops: The Balandiza (BBFCS) cooperative in Uganda provides its farmers with tissue culture banana suckers and hybrid beans, promoting food security alongside cash crop production. Similarly, members of the CAF2B cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire are diversifying into manioc, rice, and market gardening (maraîchage) to supplement their cocoa income.
• Promoting high-value fruit trees: The COOKKANZ cooperative in the DRC is implementing a project that aims to produce and plant 22,500 fruit trees, including plums, avocados, guavas, and passion fruit. These trees are planted alongside coffee, providing a valuable secondary income source for farmers.
• Supporting local value-added processing: A project with Solidaridad West Africa in Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates the power of moving up the value chain. With TDC funding, 175 women are building the skills and infrastructure needed to transform raw cocoa into finished products, allowing them to capture more value locally and build sustainable businesses.

These diversification strategies, powered by TDC’s integrated support framework of coaching and grants, are fundamental to building farming communities that are not only compliant with international standards but are also economically robust, socially equitable, and environmentally resilient.

2.2.2. Fostering financial inclusion through VSLAs

In rural communities where formal banking services are often inaccessible, Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), also known as AVEC in Francophone Africa, play a crucial role. These member-owned groups provide a secure platform for savings, facilitate access to small loans, and foster a culture of financial discipline. The Trade for Development Centre recognizes the power of VSLAs as a tool for economic empowerment, particularly for women entrepreneurs, and actively supports their establishment through its grant programmes.

The scale of TDC’s commitment to financial inclusion is evident in the concrete outcomes of its funded projects:

1. Kuapa Kokoo (Ghana): The EmpoWER project, funded with an €81,611 grant from TDC, aims to establish 50 VSLAs to benefit approximately 1,250 members and improve rural access to credit.
2. Socak-Katana (Côte d’Ivoire): As a result of its long-term focus on member support, the cooperative has successfully established 32 AVEC to promote financial autonomy.
3. Kabonero Cooperative (Uganda): A TDC-funded project will establish 20 new VSLAs and strengthen 15 existing ones, a strategy designed to discourage side-selling and encourage collective marketing by providing farmers with reliable access to finance.
4. BARA Bangolo (Côte d’Ivoire): The cooperative has already created 10 AVEC to support income-generating activities, with a particular focus on empowering its women members.

By promoting VSLAs, TDC helps build a foundation of financial resilience that enables farmers to invest in their farms, smooth their household income, and fund the very diversification strategies—from integrating new crops to local value-added processing—that build long-term economic independence.

2.3.  Agroforestry, agroecology & climate-smart agriculture

Agroforestry, agroecology, and climate-smart agriculture are fundamental strategies supported by the Trade for Development Centre to build sustainable and resilient farming systems. These practices enhance biodiversity, improve soil health, increase carbon sequestration, and strengthen producer organisations’ capacity to adapt to climate change. Through its grant financing, TDC supports a wide range of on-the-ground interventions that translate these principles into tangible environmental and economic benefits.

The breadth and scale of TDC’s support are demonstrated through numerous partner projects:

• Large-scale seedling distribution: Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana has distributed over 450,000 shade tree seedlings, the COOKKANZ cooperative in the DRC is implementing a project to produce 75,000 shade tree seedlings, and the Kukuom Cooperative in Ghana successfully distributed 27,000 economic shade trees.
• System implementation: Kuapa Kokoo is actively implementing Dynamic Agroforestry systems across 54 communities, creating more diverse and resilient cocoa landscapes.
• Training and capacity building: beneficiaries of a project with the Ivorian state agency CI-PME receive targeted training on agroecology, while the Kabonero Cooperative in Uganda promotes the adoption of climate-smart practices through the establishment of ten Farmer Field Schools for peer-to-peer learning.

By funding these diverse interventions, TDC fosters an agricultural model where ecological sustainability becomes the bedrock for the social and financial empowerment of farming communities, a process often accelerated by greater financial inclusion.

2.4. Unlocking Carbon Markets

As the global focus on climate action intensifies, carbon markets and Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are emerging as an innovative income stream for smallholder farmers. These mechanisms create a direct financial incentive for environmental stewardship, rewarding farmers for practices that sequester carbon and protect biodiversity. TDC is at the forefront of helping producer organisations tap into this potential.

A specific TDC-funded project with the Balandiza Kimeze Bukulula Farmers’ Cooperative Society (BBFCS) in Uganda exemplifies this forward-looking approach. The cooperative provides tree seedlings to its members for planting on their farms. This activity not only promotes agroforestry but also “attracts carbon credits,” which the project identifies as “an additional source of income for the farmers.”

This initiative demonstrates a powerful synergy, aligning environmental restoration with direct financial benefits for farming communities. By framing climate-smart agriculture not just as a resilience strategy but as a profitable enterprise, TDC is pioneering a multi-faceted approach to sustainability that enhances both ecological health and economic prosperity.

Photos:
– Adélard Palata (front) and Roger Kasereka (COOKKANZ) – © Enabel/Samuel Poos