Sustainability initiative Better Cotton has embarked on a two-year pilot project in Côte d’Ivoire aimed at enhancing healthcare accessibility for farmers while strengthening cotton supply chains.
This initiative is set to develop a health programme specifically designed to serve the needs of approximately 8,000 local residents initially.
Go deeper with GlobalData
In Côte d’Ivoire, nearly half of the populace endures living beneath the poverty threshold and health indicators rank among the poorest in West Africa.
Despite the Côte d’Ivoire government’s endorsement of a comprehensive social protection strategy and the enactment of a Universal Health Coverage law in 2019, which requires citizens to enrol, participation rates remain low.
As of 2024, only 27% of the population has registered for the programme, with a mere 5% actively utilizing the health care services offered by this system.
With this project, Better Cotton aspires to establish a scalable model that could benefit underserved populations worldwide.
Better Cotton smallholder livelihoods manager Maria Kjaer said: “Farmer health and well-being are essential to supporting sustainable agriculture. We have the opportunity to remove healthcare barriers for farming communities to create a real, positive impact.”
The initiative has received financial backing from Better Cotton, ISEAL, and Olam Agri. Its execution is facilitated by the financial assistance provided through the ISEAL Innovations Fund. This fund garners support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the UK Aid from the British government.
For the project, Better Cotton has collaborated with SECO, an Olam Agri subsidiary, and Elucid, a social enterprise to develop an ecosystem that improves health which reducing costs.
Elucid’s digital healthcare platform will be deployed across select farming regions in Côte d’Ivoire.
This platform will register cotton farmers and link them with local accredited healthcare providers while facilitating secure payments and gathering user feedback to enhance service offerings, notes Better Cotton.
Elucid managing director and co-founder Samuel Knauss said: “With this project, we are bringing our healthcare model to cotton farmers by strengthening the capacity of agricultural producer organisations. This will ensure that farmers can access essential and emergency care without financial hardship. Building on our success in the cocoa and coffee sectors, we aim to show that investing in healthcare not only improves farmer well-being but also strengthens cotton supply chains and creates lasting impact for communities.”
The partnership will involve agricultural producer organisations (APOs) to promote local engagement with the platform, monitor its usage effectively, and ensure it addresses pertinent issues faced by the community.
The project’s success is expected to expand social protection coverage for farmer households, eliminate healthcare access barriers, and pave the way for continued investment in these services even after the project concludes.
SECO vice president and managing director Jean-François Touré said: “This project shall serve as a reference for the industry, particularly as Côte d’Ivoire advances the implementation of its Universal Health Coverage programme. Through this partnership with Better Cotton and Elucid, we aim to create a lasting, scalable impact for farming communities.”
Better Cotton’s initiative not only seeks to offer valuable insights into sustainable agricultural practices but also aims to provide data on the relationship between health outcomes and farmer incomes, potentially informing similar efforts across various commodities and regions.
