West and Central African cocoa policy research and analysis networking

This research programme set out to enhance knowledge and improve the policy-making process in the cocoa sub-sector in West and Central Africa. The programme remains unfinished having been halted midway through. However, a number of important results to date should be highlighted. Agricultural research generally has a poor understanding of the economic and institutional dynamics of change in the cocoa sub-sector. There is a need to monitor the rapid changes linked to the process of economic liberalisation occurring in the cocoa sub-sector. This monitoring process should involve a range of actors, including representatives of government, farmers' organisations and private sector producers that play a major role in developing these policies and in cocoa production. This can be done through the establishment of policy networks. However, establishing policy networks involves high transaction costs and therefore cannot succeed without adequate funding and long term commitment