Friesland Campina WAMCO: Best CSR Programmes West Africa 2015

Providing branded high-quality dairy products throughout Nigeria and West Africa, FrieslandCampina WAMCO is a market leader on a mission to improve the lives and welfare of both its customers and the wider society. The company, an affiliate of Royal FrieslandCampina of The Netherlands – the world’s largest dairy cooperative, pioneered corporate citizenship projects in Nigeria in 2004 – long before corporate social responsibility (CSR) became fashionable.

Since then, FrieslandCampina WAMCO has maintained three corporate citizenship programmes: a water project, school adoptions, and a tertiary endowment fund aimed at offering financial support to research in food science at six universities. The endowment also includes a Best Graduating Student Award.

To date, the company’s water project has commissioned over forty solar-powered boreholes while its school adoption programme equipped 18 public secondary schools with textbooks and computers. In addition to these three main projects, FrieslandCampina WAMCO actively supports around thirty charitable organisations across the country with both grants and products. The company also rushed to offer relief to the thousands of internally displaced people who fled the political violence of the north and now live in refugee camps.

In 2010, FrieslandCampina WAMCO launched its Dairy Development Programme in a bid to support the Nigerian’s government’s initiative to further develop agriculture. The programme has gradually expanded its geographical footprint and includes provisions for the transfer of milk production technology to Nigerian farmers. FrieslandCampina works closely with government entities to ensure broad access to training programmes and workshops.

The CFI.co judging panel understands that large multinational corporations are asked to assume an increasingly larger share of responsibility for the wellbeing of the natural and social environment they operate in. FrieslandCampina WAMCO has embraced this challenge willingly and wholeheartedly.

As such, the company is a true CSR pioneer. Its trail-blazing approach has not only inspired others to follow suit, but also ensured the diary producer a place at the very top of the corporate food chain. The CFI.co judges, in turn, willingly and wholeheartedly recommend FrieslandCampina WAMCO be declared winner of the 2015 Best CSR Programmes West Africa Award.