A coalition of European country partners are working towards sourcing only certified and sustainable cocoa for the European market, as well as reducing deforestation, stimulating education for future generations, and providing a living income for cocoa growers.

The country secretariats have engaged in a process of harmonising the indicators and data to be used for their monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) processes. Akvo has developed a common reporting tool for the platform members and an IT-solution to help them assess progress towards their goals.

GISCO and Beyond Chocolate needed a centralised platform where various secretariats could collect and report on data provided by a number of Cocoa-related member organisations in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Before the partnership began, the data was collected using spreadsheets that were circulated to the platform members. This meant that data could not be anonymised, data entry was complex and error prone, and partners could not easily collaborate or compare data to previous years. Given the complex nature of the organisational set up, the portal needed to have a strong focus on role and member-based data access.

As a result, the secretariats have been able to create more trust among the members that their data is handled securely. The platform has made data entry much easier for fairly complicated questionnaires, as well as reducing the time taken to clean and analyse the data. Ultimately, this custom online reporting tool helps to keep all members accountable and effectively monitor progress towards the end goal: sourcing only sustainable cocoa for the European market.