Previous ONE Afrcia Award Winners

The ONE Africa Award celebrates African efforts aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world’s blueprint for a better future. Here are the previous winners:

2022 Winner: Elena NGO

Elena is an African-led organization based in Cameroon. Elena started as an informal initiative to train young girls who have not had the opportunity to have a place in a post-primary educational institution for one reason or another. Today, Elena has evolved and is on a mission to develop sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor and the underprivileged through its innovative programs.

2020 winner: The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC)

The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) established in Nigeria in 2003, won the 2020 award for its African efforts aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world’s blueprint for a better future. This NGO aims to increase citizen participation in governance processes with a focus on improving the integrity of the public and private sectors.

2018 winner: Dext Technology

Dext Technology, a Ghanaian company, won the 2018 prize for its innovative Science Set – a mini science lab that contains materials and components to enable students to carry out basic experiments. Science in Ghana is taught in the abstract – teachers explain the theory of science on the blackboard. A lack of funding means practical demonstrations aren’t possible. The Science Set provides an affordable solution. Small enough to fit in a school bag or on a desk, it takes science beyond the theory and helps teachers show students how exciting science is with practical experiments.

2016 Winner: Connected Development (CODE)

CODE is a Nigerian-based advocacy organisation with a mission to empower marginalized communities by improving access to information needed to better local public services. CODE successfully wielded its expertise to empower local communities to claim funds that were appropriated to them. CODE provides training on how to track missing or misappropriated local funds, and educates citizens and lobbies governments to produce funds where they have been promised. Through these activities, CODE has contributed to reducing poverty in target communities by boosting citizen participation in governance. CODE has also tackled corruption in Nigeria

2015 Winner: Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment (SWAGEN)

SWAGEN is a member-based organisation that uses indigenous knowledge to adapt to, mitigate and improve environmental and sustainable development policies that impact forest dependent communities. SWAGEN works in the Rwoho Natural Tropical Forest of Uganda. What began in 1992 as a small group of women responding to a national policy that restricted access to the forest has grown to a 3,000 member organisation with strategic partnerships across the continent and the world.

2014 Winner: Friends of the Global Fund Africa (Friends Africa)

Friends Africa supports the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in partnership with the Global Fund. It campaigns with civil society, the private sector and governments. Friends Africa’s advocacy work has supported the Global Fund in galvanising support from African governments, the private sector and civil society, while also mobilising resources through its Gift from Africa campaign and Africa Champions for Health Initiative.

2013 Winner: Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF) of Tanzania

ANSAF is a network of non-state stakeholders in Tanzania’s agricultural sector that brings the voices of struggling smallholder farmers to the policymaking table. The organisation monitors Tanzania’s agricultural budget and advocates for the government to allocate 10% of its national budget to agricultural and rural development in accordance with the 2003 Maputo Declaration.

2012 Winner: Positive-Generation

Positive Generation uses a variety of advocacy tools and methods in its efforts to ensure quality of life for those living with HIV/AIDS in Cameroon. PG uses advocacy to pressure government leaders to protect the safety and health of HIV-positive individuals in Cameroon.

2011 Winner: GF2D

GF2D empowers Togolese women to exercise their right to participate in the decision-making processes of their country by deploying paralegals into communities to share legal knowledge and by training women to run in local and national elections, amongst other activities.

2010 Winner: SEND Ghana

SEND Ghana works to educate and empower citizens to take part in the political process and access the services available to them.

2009 Winner: SIDAREC

SIDAREC, a community-based organisation founded by young people in Nairobi’s slums, engages and empowers disadvantaged youth in the urban slums of Kenya’s capital, specifically to prevent violence.

2008 Winner: Devcoms

Devcoms works with the media in Nigeria to train and education journalists and editors on public health issues, especially those concerning women and children.