Dr Christiane Hellar on the Board of the Forum for Sustainable Cocoa

There, she will represent the civil society perspective alongside Evelyn Bahn (INKOTA). The board is composed of an equal number of representatives – two each from trade, industry, civil society and politics – and coordinates the association’s activities.

Through its involvement on the Executive Board, the Foundation will engage even more closely in the negotiation process between the stakeholder groups in future and work to ensure that the FNK’s objectives, adopted in 2019, are pursued and implemented with even greater vigour. For, despite all the agreements, progress in the fight against abuses such as child labour, deforestation and poverty has so far fallen well short of the member organisations’ expectations.

Dr Hellar had already emphasised the importance of negotiation processes between stakeholder groups in multi-stakeholder initiatives and of a lively debate on the concrete implementation of objectives in her keynote speech at the Forum for Sustainable Cocoa’s general meeting in 2017. As part of its focus on the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, the Foundation is also launching its own dialogue formats on the implementation of human rights due diligence obligations.