Renowned sustainability and communications entrepreneur, and Chief Executive of CSR-in-Action Group, Bekeme Masade-Olowola, has won the award of ‘Women’s Role Model in Mining and Geosciences’ – a recognition for the most exceptional, inspirational women with significant contributions to the mining and geoscience industry. Similarly, her non-profit organisation, CSR-in-Action Advocacy, received the award of the ‘Best Performing NGO in Mining and Geosciences’, which honours any Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that has committed its activities to soliciting for, educating, and creating awareness for solutions to challenges within the industry.
Both awards are from the Nigerian Institute of Mining and
Geosciences (NIMG) at its 2021 Annual Public Lecture, Investiture, and Awards,
which took place on the 10th of November 2021 in Abuja, with the Minister of
Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, as chief host.
In his lecture, themed ‘Peace and Security: A Catalyst to
Mineral Exploration and Investment in Nigeria’, keynote speaker, Prof Olugbenga
Akindeji Okunola, encouraged the mining and geosciences sector to contribute
towards reducing poverty by harnessing all her resources and opening job
opportunities to the skilled youth in the country.
According to the keynote speaker, the industry currently
accounts for about 0.33% of national employment, 0.02% of exports, and about
N400B of Nigeria’s GDP (around 0.3%), a significant decline from the early
1980s. This is relatively low, given the comparative contribution of minerals
and mining to the economies of other African countries.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is home to almost all the solid minerals
that exist including Zincite, a rare gemstone, and Bitumen, of which Nigeria
has the second-largest deposit in the world.
Bekeme Masade-Olowola is a leading sustainability and
communications entrepreneur. She is the Founder and Chief Executive of
CSR-in-Action, a group made of a consulting firm, a think tank, and a training
institute dedicated to corporate social responsibility, policy development,
advocacy, empowerment, and sustainable development in the region. She is a
Board Member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), becoming the first out
of West Africa.
Masade-Olowola has engaged stakeholders throughout the
economic value chain, initiating the annual Sustainability in the Extractive
Industries (SITEI) Conference, the largest development-focused gathering for
extractives, and has nurtured it into its tenth year with strong government,
business, civil society, and other key stakeholders’ participation. SITEI is
also the platform on which she recently spearheaded the design and development
of the premier Community Engagement Standards (CES) a conflict mitigating and
management tool for the extractive industries of developing economies.
She has won many industry awards and recognitions, including
the Marketing Communication Personality Leadership Prize for the Year 2017, and
the Sustainability Professional of the Year, 2019.
Other awards conferred at the NIMG investiture were the NIMG
Excellence Award given to Dr Oluwatoyin Akinlade, and the Icon of Mining and
Geosciences Award, given to Otunba (Engr) Babatunde, amongst others.
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