Over 15 corporate bodies receive CSR Excellence awards
The Ghana CSR Excellence Awards (GHACEA) has awarded more than 15 corporate institutions in the country in various categories for the corporate social investments.
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The 6th edition of the awards which has become the industry benchmark since 2011 is organised by the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), West Africa. This year’s awards were held at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra September 23 and was attended by captains of industry, chief executive officers and corporate leaders.
MTN, Kosmos, Unilever, Guinness, Tigo, Vodafone, Airtel, PwC, Samba Foods and Prudential Life won awards at the night.
Odebrecht Ghana, Huawei Technologies, Databank, Coconut Grove Hotel and Fidelity Bank made the winning list on the night and were well represented by top management-level directors and chief executives.
Criteria
Underlining criteria for the awards included commitment to sustainability, beneficiary-focused initiatives, implementation of result-oriented CSR initiatives within the period under review and proven commitment to the triple bottomline (people, planet, profit).
Entries are subjected to stringent verification and evaluation processes presided over by a multi-stakeholder jury drawn from academia, business associations, civil society organisations, regulatory agencies, international development partners and the media.
Speaking at the awards, Mr Joe Tackie, the Chief Executive Officer of the Private Sector Development Strategy, a portfolio situated at the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Office of the President reiterated that: “development is a collaborative effort and a painstaking exercise that requires commitment to standards. We are growing as a nation and our cumulative growth as a people is inclusive of the growth of the private sector.”
Lead manager
Lead Project Manager, Mr Kojo Williams, stated that the GHACEA was becoming more competitive every year and it was beginning to receive entries from sectors of industry that would usually not bother so much about CSR and Sustainability.
“This means that our CSR advocacy with supports from notable organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Chamber of Commerce and others, is pushing companies to be more socially responsible and sustainability conscious.”
The GHACEA has injected a new paradigm into how businesses give back to society. Companies are now becoming more informed about their roles in society and beginning to weave social responsibility and sustainability around their core business mandate. This is a departure from the erstwhile ad-hoc and one-off approach to CSR.