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.

PHOTO: L-R; Otunba (Engr) Babatunde Alatise, Managing Director, Tuntise Investment Ltd and winner of the Nigerian Institute of Mining & Geosciences (NIMG) Icon of Mining and Geosciences Award; Rear Admiral B.E. Oluwagbamila, Director of Research and Development, Naval Headquarters, Abuja; Bekeme Masade-Olowola, Chief Executive, CSR-in-Action and winner of the NIMG Women’s Role Model in Mining & Geosciences Award; Dami Vera-Cruz, Manager, External Communications & Innovation and Elizabeth Odeniyi, Associate Consultant, representing CSR-in-Action for the NIMG Best Performing NGO in Mining & Geosciences Award, at the First NIMG Annual Public Lecture, Investiture & Awards ceremony held in Abuja recently.

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