EPIC-Africa (www.EPIC-Africa.org) has today announced the winners of the 1st edition of the African CSO Excellence Awards. The Awards highlight the importance of organizational capacity to achieve program impact and improve the well-being of Africa’s citizens.

This year’s winners are civil society organizations who model best practices across eight core elements of organizational effectiveness: Strategic Ability and Adaptability, Leadership and Governance, Financial Health and Management, Human Resources and Staff Development, Operations, Communications, Partnerships and Alliances, Monitoring and Evaluation.

For the expert evaluators*, these organizations stood out  because of their  openness to being assessed and their commitment to learning and  growth.  They are not only modeling best practices in terms of organizational effectiveness, but also crucially, helping to start an important conversation in Africa about CSO transparency and accountability.   

The winners (http://bit.ly/2Veha2s) by category are:

Strategic Ability and Adaptability- HakiElimu (Tanzania)

Leadership and Governance- HakiElimu (Tanzania)

Financial Health and Management- Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF)  (Kenya)

Human Resources and Staff Development- Ghana Center for Democratic Development (Ghana)

Communications- Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) (Kenya)

Monitoring and Evaluation- Partage et Action en Synergie pour le Développement (PASYD)  (Togo)

Operations- Hope WorldWide Kenya  (Kenya)

Partnerships and Alliance- Centre d'Actions pour l'Environnement et le Développement Durable (ACED)  (Benin)

The Tanzanian CSO, HakiElimu, has been selected as the overall winner of the Awards. In addition to modeling excellence in all areas, HakiElimu stood out in their demonstration of the powerful relationship between organizational effectiveness and program impact.

John Kalage, Executive Director of  HakiElimu said “We are delighted to have been selected as the overall winner for the EPIC Africa CSO Excellence Awards. HakiElimu will continue to strive for even higher standards of performance, accountability and legitimacy, as we share our expertise and learnings to help build on a vibrant, diverse and influential civil society in Tanzania and beyond. Only together can we continue to deliver tangible improvements to the lives of Tanzanians and Africans across the continent.”

This year, the African CSO Excellence Awards received 950 registrations and 389 completed entries from 46 African countries. The winners were selected by expert evaluators from the philanthropy, technology and business sectors. See the full list of evaluators here (http://bit.ly/2DNgnKW).

“We are incredibly excited and proud to showcase this year’s winners who are among the most outstanding African CSOs today and are at the forefront of African transformation. We saw excellent strategies and effective ways of implementing them which gives us confidence that these organizations can truly respond to the challenges in their communities in innovative and efficient ways,” says EPIC-Africa co-founder Rose Maruru. 

The African CSO Excellence Awards, launched in October 2018 included a rigorous 2 stage questionnaire, in-depth document review, video interviews, reference checks, and a final jury evaluation to determine the winners.

The winners across each category and the overall winner will get an opportunity to fundraise on the international GlobalGiving (https://bitly.is/2DK74vk) Platform, increase their media visibility and participate in networking opportunities through the African CSO Excellence Awards community.

*Potential conflicts of interest were duly noted and concerned jury members recused themselves from judging the categories where conflicts of interest were perceived.