Cape Town
The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia walked away with the trophy for Best Annual Report on the African continent at the inaugural African Excellence Awards, hosted by Communication Director, a leading global public relations and communications magazine.
The Fund’s 2015 annual report was recognised for its uniqueness, strong stakeholder focus and impact-oriented coverage of the Fund’s initiatives, with a clear link to broader national strategies in Namibia’s environmental sector.
The African Excellence Awards celebrate exceptional work of public relations, communication and media practitioners across the continent. Those honoured received their awards at the winner’s ceremony at the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel in Cape Town on April 21.
Receiving the award, head of communication and corporate affairs at EIF, Lazarus Nafidi emphasised the increasing role of strategic corporate reporting in developing and maintaining shareholder support, advancing research-based decision-making and as an essential key to unlocking opportunities for mobilising additional resources, new business and new partnerships for any company operating in any sector in the world.
“As a State-owned Fund, that is predominantly Section 21 in mandate, compliance with financial reporting to the shareholder has been a constant. As a development entity, however, we have transitioned to a reporting approach that serves as an expression of our current and future investment needs.
“Impact-based reporting has in this instance proved more useful to our stakeholders and us. It also bodes well with how the current government would like to see contributions to poverty alleviation, food and livelihood security by State-owned enterprises”. Nafidi said.
It is because of communication tools like their annual report that international stakeholders, such as the Green Climate Fund, have fully acknowledged the EIF as an institution capable of producing shareholder returns on investments, both financial and environmental impacts.