Client: The iMPACT Consortium
Title: The iMPACT PROJECT
Date:December 2007- January 2012
Brief Description
PDA is part of a partnership inspired by the MARS Company comprising AFRICARE, GTZ, ICI, IFESH, MARS Inc, Rainforest Alliance and STCP. The Mars Partnership for African Cocoa Communities of Tomorrow (iMPACT) is a three-year program with funding from Mars Incorporated, starting January 2008.The target group is rural communities of Ghana who are reliant on cocoa as a means of income and living. The project is being piloted in 18 communities in two districts in Ghana. The pilot districts are Wasa Amenfi West (Asankrangwa) and Assin North (Assin Fosu).
The partnership’s aim is to demonstrate that an integrated approach that includes agriculture, environment, education and health can lead to distinct changes in the incomes and welfare of rural communities. The purpose of the iMPACT program is to develop the capacity of cocoa farming communities in Ghana to identify and improve their social, economic and environmental situation. The achievement of this purpose will contribute to the development of cocoa farming in Ghana as profitable, socially rewarding and environmentally sustainable livelihood for families and an attractive occupation for the coming generation.OASIS Foundation in Assin North and CODESULT Network in Wassa Amenfi West, both districts based NGOs are the Community Engagement Partners(CEPs), the face of iMPACT at community level.
PDA as part of the partnership has the responsibility to provide capacity building support to the community engagement processes. These include the training of Community Engagement Partners (CEPs) and key district stakeholders in the use of participatory methodologies to conduct Dialogue & Sensitisation and Participatory Planning and elaboration of community action plans. Also PDA is to coordinate, provide backstopping in the community engagement process and monitor the support the CEPs give to the communities in the implementation of their community action plans.