Child labour risks are not always immediately visible. They may exist within households, farms, mining communities and the lower tiers of supply chains, beyond the direct view of regulators and established businesses. Even when a concern is identified, protecting the child depends on whether the information reaches the right institution, receives an appropriate response and is followed through to a satisfactory conclusion.
As part of efforts in closing this gap between identification and action, the Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA), in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) under the ACCEL Africa Project, organized a two-day workshop among key government, community- and district-level child-protection institutions from 26 – 27 August 2026 in Bibiani.
The workshop brought together 45 stakeholders from Bia East, Juaboso, Wassa Amenfi East and Bibiani Anhwiaso Bekwai to develop a Bipartite Community Coordination (BCC) Framework. The framework is a new mechanism intended to strengthen how child-labour concerns are identified, documented, referred and followed up across cocoa and artisanal and small-scale gold-mining communities.
Participants included representatives of Community Child Protection Committees (CCPCs), relevant district institutions, employers and workers. Their discussions were guided by a practical but important question: when a child-labour concern is identified within a community, does everyone involved know who should act next?
Ghana already has extensive policies and institutional arrangements for preventing and responding to child labour. CCPCs, District Child Protection Committees (DCPCs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies provide an established foundation for community protection and institutional response. The effectiveness of these structures, however, depends on how well they communicate and coordinate in practice.
Consultations previously conducted by GEA with CCPCs in the four districts found that community committees were making important contributions but could achieve more through stronger connections with one another and with district institutions. Committees in neighbouring communities did not always have reliable channels for sharing information. Referral pathways were not consistently followed, while documentation, feedback and follow-up were sometimes affected by limited literacy and logistical support.
The workshop therefore focused on strengthening the connections among existing institutions rather than creating a parallel system. It provided stakeholders with an opportunity to examine the entire referral process from the identification of a concern to its documentation, referral, institutional response and eventual follow-up.
A major outcome of the engagement was the validation of the framework and an accompanying 12-month BCC Coordination Roadmap. The roadmap prioritizes measures that are practical and responsive to conditions within the four districts.
Among the immediate actions is the establishment of a database of CCPCs and their focal persons. This will be supported by a shared contact directory to help communities, businesses and public institutions identify the appropriate person or agency to contact when a concern arises.
A WhatsApp-based coordination platform will also link community and district focal persons across the four districts. The platform will provide a simple and low-cost means of maintaining communication among geographically dispersed communities, sharing relevant updates and drawing attention to referrals requiring institutional action.
The roadmap further commits district actors to monthly focal-person check-ins and quarterly clustered support visits. The check-ins will provide regular opportunities to review emerging concerns and outstanding referrals, while clustered visits will enable district institutions to support several neighbouring communities more efficiently.
Recognizing that documentation must be accessible to the volunteers expected to use it, the framework is supported by simplified tools, including concern notes, referral forms, acknowledgement and feedback slips, follow-up registers and cross-community handover notes. Refresher orientation will also strengthen the practical capacity of CCPC members to identify, document, refer and follow up child-labour concerns.
Progress will be monitored throughout the 12-month implementation period, including through an end-of-year capability scorecard. This will allow the participating districts to assess improvements in coordination, documentation, referral and follow-up, while identifying areas requiring additional support.
The Bibiani workshop represents the latest phase of the GEA – ILO collaboration under the ACCEL Africa Project. Since July 2025, GEA has implemented a combination of research, capacity building, advocacy and social dialogue activities aimed at accelerating the elimination of child labour in the cocoa and artisanal and small-scale gold-mining supply chains of the four districts.
A comprehensive needs assessment involving 159 enterprises identified gaps in institutional capacity, responsible business practices and compliance with child-labour standards. The findings informed the development of a tailored training module, after which approximately 30 trainers from the cocoa, artisanal mining and government sectors were certified to extend awareness creation and capacity building to enterprises, communities and district-level institutions.
GEA also developed an Enterprise Compliance Maturity Model for Responsible Business Conduct, tailored to the cocoa and artisanal mining sectors. The model enables enterprises to assess their existing practices, identify compliance gaps and pursue continuous improvement. A subsequent tripartite dialogue involving government, employers and workers considered practical approaches for implementing the model.
The Enterprise Compliance Maturity Model and the BCC Framework address two interconnected dimensions of child-labour prevention. The maturity model strengthens responsibility within enterprises and supply chains, while the BCC Framework strengthens the network of community and district institutions surrounding children, families and workplaces.
For employers, preventing child labour is not only a social responsibility. It is increasingly linked to responsible sourcing, supply-chain integrity, market access, investor confidence and corporate reputation. Businesses must be able to demonstrate that they possess credible systems for identifying labour risks and responding appropriately when concerns arise.
Through the BCC Framework, hidden risks can be identified earlier, referrals can be handled more consistently and responsibility can be shared more effectively. Although initially designed for four districts, the framework has the potential to generate practical lessons for strengthening community-level child-labour prevention across Ghana, turning shared concern into coordinated action and coordinated action into better protection for every child.
