IDH 2024 Annual Report

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IDH 2024 Annual Report

IDH is proud to release our 2024 Annual Report, which outlines our work with our partners to transform markets: supporting thriving worker and farmer communities and achieving net-zero, regenerative agricultural systems. 

At IDH, we see sustainability as a collective effort, one that transcends borders and will benefit the whole of society. In a year of high environmental, economic and political volatility, IDH and our partners continued to reach across the divide in order to create resilient and scalable solutions to our current global crises.

Executive Summary

Discover how IDH is working to create better jobs, better incomes and a better environment for all in our 2024 Annual Report.

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Better Jobs

IDH defines better jobs as those that provide living wages, worker representation, safe working conditions (including combatting gender-based violence) and equal opportunities for men and women. In 2024, we worked with partners to advance decent work and wages across global value chains through sector-specific joint industry commitments, regional value chain development, and cross-sector guidelines towards close living wage gaps. This included piloting wage top-ups in tea estates, improving conditions for workers in Kenya's textile and apparel sector, and supporting companies to take data-informed actions on living wages. In a significant year for the living wage agenda, we collaborated with strategic partners to advance living wages on the global stage through our work with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Global Compact.

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Better Incomes

IDH and partners aim to achieve better incomes for smallholder farmers in agriculture and for women and men across the value chains and landscapes in which we operate. In 2024, we continued testing and refining innovative approaches towards increasing incomes, equipping partners with actionable insights, and convening to build an enabling environment. We supported companies to close living income gaps with practical guidance and data-driven tools such as the Income Driver Calculator and the Inclusive Business Analysis. Through the IDH Farmfit Fund, we helped overcome barriers to financing for cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, facilitating income diversification and unlocking financing in alternative crop value chains. In the coffee sector, we supported farmers in Kenya and Uganda to build resilience against external shocks and conducted research into fairer economic models of value distribution within the sector.

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Better Enviroment

IDH works towards a better environment by linking social and environmental agendas to ensure agricultural markets support thriving communities in net zero, regenerative agricultural systems. In 2024, we broadened our approaches to create impact at scale. IDH Invest launched its first Investment Development Hub in Colombia, with the aim of facilitating targeted investments that drive sustainable growth and improve livelihoods across agricultural value chains. We expanded our private sector partnerships in deforestation-free and sustainable cattle ranching in Brazil to cover even more producers and hectares. In Cameroon, we collaborated with the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (ONCC) to launch a sector-wide National Action Plan for Sustainable Cocoa. And we scaled our efforts to support more producing countries to ensure that compliance with European deforestation regulation does not come at the expense of the most vulnerable farmers.

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Collaborating for maximum impact

In the past 15 years, IDH has learned that collaboration between private sector companies, governments, civil society organisations and other key-stakeholders is crucial to create joint visions and sector strategies and mobilise the resources and commitments to support the transformation process. IDH has uniquely positioned itself as a convenor and critical friend of such public private partnerships in multiple sectors and geographies.

IDH enacts three roles as entry points for systems change: 

Our 2024 impact in numbers

*Cumulative results for 2024 against the 2021-2025 funding cycle

Foreword

From the Executive Board

Read a reflection from IDH's Leadership on the year that was

Lizet Friesen-Leibbrandt

Lizet Friesen-Leibbrandt

Chief Financial Officer

Daan Wensing

Daan Wensing

Chief Executive Officer

2024 was a year of ramping up implementation, during which we leveraged years of partnership to continue building resilient, scalable solutions that can withstand external shocks. This is especially important in the current global climate, where environmental and socio-economic crises are being met by short-term priorities and a focus on individual rather than collective interests.

The resilience of IDH and our partners in the face of increasing challenges is representative of our core values - courage, inclusivity and integrity. Systemic change can only occur when all actors along agricultural value chains – from farmers to companies, financiers and policymakers – have the courage, the platforms and the means to work together and challenge the status quo. In 2024 our partners showed tremendous willingness to collaborate on change that went beyond each of our individual parts.

From the Supervisory Board

Magdi Batato

Magdi Batato

Chairman of the IDH Supervisory Board

There is no doubt that 2024, as the ones that came before it, was a year of high environmental, economic and political volatility. The multiple global crises we face makes the work of IDH more relevant than ever, and I'm proud of the efforts we have made in 2024 to become a resilient and even-more impactful global organisation.

Ready to explore our work in depth?

Discover how IDH is working to create better jobs, better incomes and a better environment for all in our 2024 Annual Report.

Annex

To explore IDH’s progress in 2024, the document below offers detailed insights into our organisational development, ESG performance, and financial results, offering a comprehensive picture of IDH’s operational resilience.