Bakary Traoré

Bakary Traoré is Executive Director of the association IDEF - Initiatives for Community Development and Forest Conservation, an Ivorian NGO specializing in the governance of natural resources and the monitoring of supply chains including timber, cocoa and mining.

Since 2019, IDEF has supported small producers in cocoa production without deforestation. But also intervenes through independent observation by publishing on the reality on the ground in the timber, cocoa and mining sectors. The latest report published focuses on the major challenges of the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire. It was published in December 2021 and is available for free download at the end of this article which summarizes the contents of the report. Two future reports are in preparation, one on the results of the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, 4 years after the signing of the joint action framework and the other on the marketing of cocoa produced inside the National Park of Mount Peko. He is also the head of the NGO Working Group on Transparency in the Cocoa Sector. A working group made up of a dozen NGOs at the origin of the open letter to European decision-makers in favor of geolocation and several technical notes including this note on the European regulation relating to products linked to deforestation.