Measuring what a family needs to earn a decent standard of living in a particular coffee production region (Living Income Benchmark); What is the total current actual family income (Farmer Household Actual Income); and What is the difference or “gap”, between the Living Income Benchmark and the Actual Household Income (the Living Income Gap). This provides a quantifiable and comparable number to inform collaborative efforts and strategies to reduce the income gap and to promote and measure continuous improvement overtime on the pathway to prosperity.

Currently CPPTF, in collaboration with regional platforms, national coffee organizations and other national and international partners, is implementing Living Income Assessments in 9 countries: Vietnam, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Togo, Angola, Honduras, Mexico and Peru. The assessments use the globally recognized Anker Methodology, and the assessments are guided by the Anker Institute and NewForesight Consulting, who also work with national actors to build their institutional capacity to use the methodology independently.

In two of these countries, Rwanda and Mexico, the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) in partnership with the CPPTF has been conducting full Actual Income assessments that also include an analysis of value transfer from FarmGate to FOB. COSA also works directly with national institutions to build their capacity to independently conduct the measurements in the future and COSA focuses on ensuring that the producers themselves have access to the data for their own understanding and planning and to promote “data democracy” and transparency throughout the sector

Given the scale of the challenge to create a resilient and sustainable sector, actions must be broad and not only focused on the individual farm level. For this reason, the CPPTF has also partnered with Conservation International and Rainforest Alliance to conduct Resilient Landscape Assessments. This analysis at the geographic or jurisdictional level can identify what the current economic, environmental and social situation is at the Landscape Level, looking at the different production systems, market opportunities, infrastructure and service needs and social/cultural dynamics. Economic analysis, linked to Living Income, plays a key role in this analysis.

To achieve sector transformation, pre-competitive and sector wide action and drivers are needed. Market policy and regulations can provide that driver, whereby all stakeholders must comply and unfair competitive advantage can be avoided. The European Union’s Zero Deforestation legislation (and the forthcoming Human Rights directives) are a good example of this, because they must be universally complied with throughout the sector if importers want to sell into the European market. However regulation at this scale comes with serious challenges that include compliance, but also to avoid that certain origins or producer groups are marginalized and/or that the costs and risks of compliance fall solely on producers. For this reason the CPPTF, in partnership with regional platforms, has been working to better understand the legislation and to link to support initiatives for producer countries and all supply chain actors to be compliant. In cases such as the Human Rights directives, that are discussing including Living Income, the CPPTF has taken a pro-active approach, forming an ad hoc working committee to discuss and provide information to policy makers on how Living Income can be successfully promoted through legislation in the coffee sector. It is evident that the current EU legislation is only the beginning of similar legislation from the EU and other importing countries directed towards battling global threats such as climate change, natural resource degradation, and immigration driven by economic, environmental and political challenges.

Although not an assessment methodology per se, the formation of national, multi-stakeholder platforms to collectively develop strategies and implement actions to address the sector’s challenges is a critical element to achieve the sector’s transformational goal. Therefore, the CPPTF builds on existing national platforms or facilitates the establishment of new platforms that can use the results of the assessments (Living Income, Market Transparency, Market Policy and Resilient Landscapes) to inform their strategies, identify the key local actors that are the real “agents of change” and, significantly, to identify what can be done at the national level, what must be addressed at the regional level and what needs to be change at the international and sector level to create the required enabling environment.

As with the national platforms, the regional platforms are a key element in the process of sector transformation. Therefore the CPPTF has established cooperation agreements with 3 regional coffee platforms to work at scale on the critical sector issues the CPPTF is addressing and to raise awareness and direct participation of producing countries. The platforms are: The InterAfrican Coffee Organization (IACO), Promecafé (MesoAmerica) and The ASEAN Coffee Federation (ACF), collectively representing 44 countries. Through these collaborations the platforms share information with their members for their approval and direct input into the design and implementation of activities. The platforms support the pilot activities of the technical workstreams by facilitating engagement between service-providers conducting assessments with the lead national coffee institutions of their members. In this way they ensure full understanding, acceptance and uptake of the methodologies and results, while supporting that the processes build upon and reflect national and regional realities and strategies.

Each platform is creating a Regional Knowledge Hub, like this one, to store information on the results of the pilots, relevant policy issues and related work, to share with their members, as well as between the Regional Hubs and with the ICO facilitated Global Knowledge Hub. The focus is on creating a two-way communication channel for more information to reach producing countries through the regional platforms and for producing countries to communicate challenges, successful coping strategies, and their needs to the regional and international level.

At the same time, the regional platforms help identify and build upon activities that their members are already doing to address these challenges. In this way, the sector can work at all 3 levels (with both public and private entities) to identify what are the challenges and solutions and what can be done and by whom at each of these 3 levels. In this way, the platforms help to facilitate that implementation builds on what is currently being done and fits within the approved strategies of the members to avoid duplication and/or that strategies do not fit the local reality and context. This 3-level approach, building on and complimenting existing activities, is particularly important since exporting countries do not have the means nor agency to individually address all the complex challenges the sector faces nor the ability to enact the systemic changes required at the sector level.

For these reasons, an enabling environment must be created that provides a supportive policy, investment and programming framework (from both governments and companies) that permits positive change from the farm level to the consumer. This enabling framework must consider local capacities and ability to invest in change, and in particular avoid that small holders, who are often the most vulnerable actors (while providing valuable environmental and social services) are not marginalized in the process and/or all the risks and costs fall on them. The regional platforms can play a key role in dialoguing with public and private entities to ensure this framework reflects the needs and realities of their members.

The collaboration with the platforms allows for the flow of information and knowledge to work at the national, regional and international level, ensuring the active participation of their members, and building upon their efforts and strategies. The platforms also facilitate that implementation respects local contexts and realities, while creating the space for the 44 member countries to identify common challenges and common solutions and to collaborate with the ICO/CPPTF at the sector level to transition to a sustainable and resilient coffee sector internationally.