The Centre for CSR, West Africa, one of the sub-region’s leading CSR & Sustainability advocacy organizations, has announced entries for Ghana’s leading and longest-running corporate social responsibility (CSR) awards scheme, the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards, GHACEA. The Awards is open to all Ghanaian and foreign companies operating in Ghana.
The Awards scheme, organized by the Centre for CSR West Africa, is supported by the Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana’s biggest business association, the Japan International Cooperation’s Agency, JICA, Federation of Association of Ghanaian Exporters, FAGE, WestKomm PR, Integriti Media, academia, government, media and civil society agencies.
The GHACEA is structured like the European CSR Awards scheme with multistakeholder jury drawn from industry, business associations, academia, civil society organizations, government agencies and the media. It has grown to become the most coveted CSR awards scheme and is being replicated in other parts of West Africa namely Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal and the Gambia.
According to the Centre for CSR West Africa, entries will be accepted from any company registration in Ghana that has fulfilled the criteria for submission. The critical for submission include implementation of sustainable CSR interventions in education, heath, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, manufacturing standardization, corporate governance, and support for the needy and in other areas. These interventions or projects must have been implemented between January 2017 and June 2018. Call of entries is open from Monday, 16 July to 15 August, 2018. Free entry forms, criteria and other information could be obtained via centreforcsr@outlook.com or www.centreforcsr.com.
In his interaction with the media, Mr. John Kojo Williams, Lead Project Manager and Co-Founder of the Centre explained: “Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability as a business concern, has moved from being an issue in the corporate back-burner to the centre-stage in boardrooms. Companies can no longer make excuses for not giving meaningfully and sustainability to society. And importantly, in the interest of their goodwill with stakeholders and sustainability of their business, they now consider CSR as paramount. This means that our advocacy and awareness creation over the years is yielding positive results. Businesses are becoming increasingly aware that they cannot only focus on profit-making, but also balance that with additional two ‘Ps’: People and the Planet (The Triple Bottomline). ”
The 8th GHACEA will see socially-responsible companies vying for awards in the following categories and more: CSR Company of the Year, CSR Practitioner of the Year, CSR SME of the Year, CSR Manufacturing Company of the Year, CSR Hospitality of the Year, CSR Non-bank Financial Institution of the Year, CSR Bank of the Year, CSR Consultancy of the Year, CSR eCommerce of the Year, CSR Award for Health, Education, Safety & Well-being, Greening & Environmental Protection, CSR Initiative of the Year, CSR Aviation Company of the Year, CSR Product Standardization, CSR Extractives Company of the Year, CSR Engineering Company of the Year, CSR ICT Company of the Year, CSR FMCG Company of the Year, CSR Telecom Company of the Year, CSR CEO of the Year, among others.
MTN, Kosmos Energy, DataBank, Unilever, Guinness, Tigo, Vodafone, Airtel, PwC, Odebrecht Ghana, Barclays, Huawei Technologies, Coconut Grove Hotel, Access Bank, Wire Weaving Industries, Accra City Hotel, Delta Airlines, Stratcomm Africa, Fidelity Bank, Prudential Insurance have made the winning list in previous edition.
By Sheila WILLIAMS
