One Africa to award organisations

From the Business desk

THE One Campaign, a global advocacy organisation, has announced an award to recognise best practice by African organisations or individuals promoting the effective use of development resources to help the continent to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
A statement issued by the organisation said winners of the awards would receive a one-time grant of $100,000.
It said individuals, organisations or other groups based in Africa that had demonstrated commitment and success in assisting Africans to meet one or more of the MDGs would be assessed and rewarded.
It recalled that all of the world’s countries and all leading development institutions agreed to work to achieve the MDGs which ranged from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, by the target year 2015.
The statement said qualified recipients may either be engaged in implementing programmes to address health, clean water/sanitation, agriculture, education, economic growth or employment generation for poorer communities.
“Throughout Africa, there is amazing progress to end extreme poverty and preventable disease”, the Africa Outreach Manager of the One Campaign, Edith Jibunoh, said in the statement.
It added that the One African Award would celebrate progress toward achieving MDGs.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of the One Campaign, David Lane, said: “We applaud the progress made in Africa and look forward to solutions for the challenges still ahead.
“By honouring the commitment and progress on the ground we hope that new efforts can be inspired and more lives can be saved,” he said.
The statement said the first recipient of the award would be announced at the Accra conference on aid effectiveness in September, this year, adding that the conference would be an ideal opportunity to announce the award as both conference and the award focus on ensuring assistance to Africa.
The application process is open until August 15, 2008 and interested persons can obtain more information on one.org/africaaward/.