UNDP, JICA To Chair Stakeholders’ Conference On CSR And SDG

Accra, Ghana. 17^th May, 2016 – The United Nations Development Programme will chair this year’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Conference organised by the Centre for CSR, West Africa. The Centre recently announced registration for the Stakeholders’ Conference, which will take place on 27th May, 2016 in Accra.

According to the Conference Coordinator and the Centre’s Lead Project Manager, Mr. Kojo Williams, ‘UNDP is the global custodian for the Sustainable Development Goals and the organisation provides a guide and support to ensure that nations across the world meet their development agenda and achieve set-goals under the new SDGs. It is quite remarkable for us to have the support of the UNDP for this Conference and for other similar interventions in future.’

He continued: ‘The Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, in its new cooperation agreement with Ghana and building on its long-standing support for the country’s holistic development agenda, will ensure that issues around the new SDGs are considered. We are thankful for the continued support we receive from JICA and other notable organisations such as the Association of Ghana Industries, AGI, Plan International, Chamber of Commerce to mention a few.

The National Coordinator for the SDG Philanthropy Platform, UNDP Ghana, Ms Pearl Darko emphasised the need for the private sector to compliment efforts by other stakeholders to ensure equitable and sustainable development across the country.

Registration and partnership are open to CEOs, CSR & PR Managers, CSR and Sustainability enthusiasts, Development professionals, regulatory agencies, academia, local and international NGOs and CSOs and can be done via the Centre for CSR, West Africa’s website ( www.centreforcsr.com ). Guinness Ghana is the official beverage sponsor for the Conference.

Last year, Plan Ghana, an international non-governmental community development organisation joined other partners to support the Ghana Edition of the West African Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Community Development Conference which was held in June.

According to Mr. Williams, this year’s edition of the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards (6^th edition) will be launched at the Conference. The Ghana CSR Excellence Awards seeks to identify, verify, evaluate and reward socially-responsible activities of companies in Ghana. It is modelled after the European CSR Awards with multi-stakeholder jury drawn from academia, business associations, government agencies, local and international NGOs and the media.

Last year, more than 35 local and international media organisations attended the Awards ceremony where MTN, Unilever Ghana, Wire Weaving Industries, Access Bank, Vodafone, Tigo, and other few socially responsible were awarded.