Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, said on Thursday cocoa remained the backbone of the country's economy bringing in about 60 per cent of the foreign exchange and should be protected against any form of threat.
"This explains the Ghana Government's resolve to join any partner in the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in cocoa", he said.
Mr Mensah was opening the second session of a four-day capacity building training programme for stakeholders in the cocoa sector dealing with the worst form of child labour in Accra.
The programme was organized in partnership with Tulane University in the United States and aimed at deepening the capacity of key staff and stakeholders working in the various programmes to fight against the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa industry.
It would also equip stakeholders in the cocoa sector to effectively manage the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa industry.
The Minister said the training was one of the assistance the government of Ghana had benefited from the United States government through the Tulane University and emphasized the existing collaboration between the two countries in the area of capacity building.
He said the maiden training programme held about a month ago had been very helpful to the participants who applied the knowledge acquired in interventions in eliminating the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa sector.
He appealed to the organisers to expand the programme to cover many of the partners such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) who were the major actors at the district and community levels.
Mr Mensah expressed government's commitment to the total elimination of child labour in the cocoa sector, adding that government looks forward to more support from Tulane University for similar training programmes.
Mr Chris Bayer, Programme Officer of the West Africa Health Organisation and a facilitator, said the programme would focus on "Information Technology and personal productivity tools for intervention management," "monitoring and related tasks" and "intervention management and Data collection and GIS Systems Applications".
Participants of the training programme included staff of the Ghana COCOBOD and staff of the Ministry of Employment and Social welfare.