Jointly commissioned by Evidensia, The Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP), and ISEAL, this report examines three in-depth case studies to examine how prominent living income policy initiatives have evolved, what motivated key actors to support or resist them, and what practitioners can draw from these experiences to apply in their own work. It also proposes an analytical framework that researchers can use to construct comparable cases.

The Living Income Differential (LID) was the result of a joint initiative of the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments to address the sharp drop in world market cocoa prices which reduced farmers’ income and governments’ revenues from cocoa. The LID is a $400 per ton premium on cocoa exports, to be paid on top of the world market price. This case study describes the process of the LID development from a planned price floor, which was changed into a premium on the export price and which initiated public-private discussions about an Economic Pact.

The newly developed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requires companies to track and address human rights issues in their supply chains – including living income. The case describes the process of negotiation around the CSDDD and shares lessons on advocacy and policy development.

Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee exporter, with smallholders earning relatively high incomes. This is the result of a steady development of the coffee sector over several decades. This case describes how it came about, and yields valuable lessons for living income practitioners in other contexts.