May 2012 C&CI • ICCO Report • 39
ICCO to stay in London A
t the same time, they postponed the search for a new permanent Executive Director until a decision is
finally reached on where the agency should base itself over the longer term. The aim beforehand (see C&CI
November 2012, page 46) had been that the ICCO would decide once and for all at its March 26-30 meeting in Guayaquil whether to confirm its acceptance back in 2002 – and then endorsed through a Headquarter Agreement signed by both parties – of Côte d’Ivoire’s 2001 offer of rent-free accommodation for ten years in its commercial capital Abidjan. Subsequent unrest in the country meant
that the move had to be put on hold indefi- nitely and then, back in 2009, the country appeared to have withdrawn the offer (see C&CI, November 2009, page 46), only to insist the following year that it had not done so (see C&CI , November, 2010, page 46). ICCO members have now decided that,
when they meet in September 2015, if the security situation in the country is deemed satisfactory then the move of their head- quarters to Abidjan will go ahead – and that if it is not it "will not relocate."
Staying put for now
Whether or not it is safe to move, delegates decided, will be based on the UN assess- ment of the security level in the country between now and September 2015, with the rating being noted every September. "If Number 2 or better is achieved across the whole country, the relocation will proceed," the council decided. For the time being at least – and almost
certainly beyond September 2015, as any move if approved will require time to put into effect – the agency will therefore remain based in London, possibly at its present location in Commonwealth House. Another possibility is to move into the space that the International Coffee Organization (ICO) is vacating at its Berners Street premises in the centre of the capital. The lease on the ICCO’s present head-
quarters expires on June 30 2013, but there is thought to be a chance that a short-term extension can be agreed. The ICCO’s gov- erning council in Guayaquil has instructed its current acting – soon to become perma- nent – Executive Director, Jean-Marc Anga,
Decisions taken at its meeting in Guayaquil will mean that the ICCO can concentrate on its real purpose – for a while
The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) will stay in
London until at least September 2015, member governments decided at their recent meeting in the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil, as Robin Stainer reports
dates nominated by governments in import- ing countries. So far the only applicants are from exporting member countries, but the tradition at the ICCO is that if the agency’s headquarters are in an importing member country then its chief executive should come from an exporting country – and vice-versa.
Development projects
to look for temporary accommodation from next July that would offer scope for making savings on rent. It is not clear, however, whether a move
to the space being vacated by the ICO would achieve this – or how long the ICO’s offers of a home at its premises, which Mr Anga has been told he may investigate, will remain open. The ICO had informed the ICCO that it
wanted a definite answer by the middle of April and that if this was not forthcoming it would look at other alternatives – either find a commercial tenant, or accept its land- lord’s offer of taking the space back, but setting tough conditions for doing this. The council decided at its March session
that Mr Anga – who has been running the ICCO’s Secretariat since Jan Vingerhoets’ retirement in 2010 (see C&CI, November 2010, page 46) – should cease doing the job in an acting capacity and become the ICCO’s permanent Executive Director from October 1 this year. His contract will last until a final decision is reached on who should take on the post over the longer term. The procedure to choose who this should
be – originally scheduled to be concluded at the ICCO’s September 2012 meeting – has been postponed until a final decision is reached on relocation, albeit "without preju- dice" to the candidates who were nominat- ed by their governments for the post by the January 27 deadline this year. However, if the decision is taken to move
the ICCO’s headquarters to Abidjan new applications for the top post at the agency will be sought, including those from candi-
Other developments in Guayaquil included the endorsement of new cocoa develop- ment projects and the announcement that the World Cocoa Conference scheduled for November this year will be launched at a ceremony in Abidjan on May 10, when all the details will be released. The ICCO also decided to hold a work-
shop in London in May to look at controver- sial legislation proposed by the EU on per- mitted cadmium levels in cocoa imports, which – if implemented – could hurt sales of cocoa, like Ecuador’s, grown on volcanic soils. Another decision was that any increase in members’ contributions to run- ning costs under the 2012/13 budget to be finalised in September should be limited to 5 per cent. A working group on food safety is to be
set up and delegates also agreed that the ICCO should hold more seminars of topics of interest to the global cocoa community. Germany’s Rueder Ohst, meanwhile, has taken over from Ewald Wermuth of the Netherlands as the importing countries’ spokesman. On the critical issues of where, over the
longer term, the ICCO should base itself and who should be its boss decisions are still pending, underlining its members’ rep- utation for procrastination. But both ques- tions will now be effectively off the agenda for three years, thereby allowing the agency to get down to its real job of throw- ing light on the coffee market and working to solve its problems, from 2012 onwards, if all goes well, doing this under the terms of the new International Cocoa Agreement (ICCA). C&CI
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