Rounding up a year of accolades, Interims for Developmentscoops highly contested UK Trade & Industry sponsored Award

Frances Williams, the Ghanaian CEO of London-based company Interims for Development was named ‘Rising Star of the Year 2005’ at the fiercely-contested UK Trade & Investment Black Enterprise Awards in October 2005, in London.  This award honours exceptional business achievements by an individual or business with outstanding skills, professionalism and perseverance.

The UK Trade & Investment Black Enterprise Award is the latest in a string of major accolades received by the company in 2005 alone. Described by the UK media as “the Rolls Royce of business awards”, Black Enterprise Awards are the only national, independent business awards event honoring African and Caribbean entrepreneurs.

In July, Williams was also named ‘Business Innovator of the Year 2005’ by the Ghana Professional Achievers Awards, held annually in London to showcase Ghana’s businesses and professionals.  And in February, Williams received the prestigious Gold Award for Innovative Capacity Building at the British Female Inventor & Innovator conference organised by the Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network (GWIIN).

Officially launched in Ghana in April 2003 by the Ghana Government’s Minister for Private Sector Development, Interims for Developmentworks with African businesses and international companies operating in Africa to support their Human Resources, business development and capacity building needs. 

Uniquely, the company taps into the expertise of professionals in the UK, and elsewhere, who join the African company as Interim Managers to take on specific projects or provide in-house training for short periods.  Clients, such as Heineken International, Diageo Africa, UNDP-UNESCO, Kenana Knitters Ltd. and Guinness Ghana Ltd., have been drawn from Ghana and many other parts of Africa and from a diversity of sectors including textiles, mining, brewing, international development and financial services. 

Expressing her delight at winning the Award, Williams said.  “We are truly pleased to win this prestigious award which recognizes our achievements in offering a new and distinctive way of addressing the business and technical skills crisis in Africa’s emerging economies.  We hope that this additional recognition will encourage more organisations in Africa to invite us to support their technical, skills, and human resources needs.”

When it comes to the subject of Africa, balanced reporting in the media is often hard to find and, with a few exceptions, there is little reporting of business in Africa in the international media.  Successfully promoting external investment in Africa means addressing the negative stereotyping and one-dimensional reporting of the continent.

The Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards, which were first launched in 2004 by Diageo, the leading premium drinks company, were established to recognise and reward journalists and editors providing quality coverage of the business environment in Africa and promoting a more balanced view of opportunity in Africa.  The 2005 Awards were presented at London’s Guildhall in July.

The ceremony, hosted by Diageo Chairman Lord Blyth, was attended by over 200 people from the worlds of business, media, government and civil society. Stressing the importance of Africa to Diageo’s global business, the Chairman hoped that, by promoting more widespread reporting of business in Africa, the awards would encourage potential investors to look more closely at the opportunities Africa has to offer.  Diageo has a strong presence in Africa.  Guinness, one of its major brands, is brewed in over 20 countries around the continent and exported to many others.

The keynote speaker, HE Paul Boateng, British High Commissioner to South Africa, urged journalists to tell "the whole story" of Africa. "Africa is not a single place," he said. "It is very complex and its potential is wondrous. We all hope in 2005 that that potential is unlocked."

Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, Executive Head of NEPAD, underlined the need to attract more investment to Africa. "These awards have been established by a company that knows Africa to be a welcoming destination," said Professor Nkuhlu. "I applaud Diageo for this innovative approach to encourage more prolific reporting of African business in the international media."

Diageo Africa’s Managing Director, Nick Blazquez, presented awards to Issac Umunna of Africa Today for Best Published Feature (‘A Partnership of Giants’) and Grant Ferrett and Caroline Pare of BBC Newsnight for Best Television Feature (‘Coca-Cola comes to Mogadishu’). 

Editor and journalist Anver Versi who won two awards (Best Publication ‘Africa Business’ and Best Journalist) spoke of the challenge to the media to tell the whole story of Africa. 

"Unfortunately, coverage of Africa often bears little resemblance to the Africa we know. Africa has enormous potential. We haven’t tried to portray Africa in a positive way, just as we know it."

Development recognised for its work in Africa

Recognition of its unique approach to building skills and capacity came with the recent selection of Interims for Developmentby GWIIN (the Global Women Innovators and Inventors Network) for the 2005 Gold Award for Capacity Building at its recent British exhibition and awards in London.

nterims for Development was set up in 2002 in response to the needs expressed by African private and public sector organisations for the technical skills and expertise needed to advance the continent’s development agenda. 

“We established Interims for Development to support African companies to grow and develop their businesses,” explains Frances Williams, Chief Executive of the company.  “One of the key reasons for the lack of development in Africa is the scarcity of technical and managerial systems and skills within our businesses and institutions.” 

Since its inception Interims for Developmenthas worked with both local African companies and with international companies operating in Africa.  Assignments in Africa have included providing Human Resources advisory services, developing and implementing business development and training programmes as well as capacity building for companies across sectors as diverse as textiles, mining, brewing, international development and financial services.

Through its work, the company aims at contributing to business growth and thereby to poverty reduction. 

“Poverty results when access to the means of creating wealth is restricted or denied.  The African continent is rich in natural resources and has a wealth of talent in its human resources.  Successfully addressing the barriers restricting people from creating wealth will reduce poverty over time,” says Ms. Williams.  “Sometimes the barriers are institutional; sometimes the barriers relate to people not being skilled or not being sufficiently skilled in the right areas to create wealth.”

Recognising that a successful organisation employs more people and provides the financial resources to tackle poor health, education and social dislocation, Interims’mandate is to work with African businesses to enhance the capacity of their human resources to grow the business and generate further employment. 

 In terms of its future projects the company, says its CEO, aims to build local African capacity to address issues of poor governance. 

“Organisational systems for combating corruption in many parts of Africa can be weak.  In 2004 we delivered a seminar in Ghana on ‘Understanding and Combating Money laundering’ to address this aspect of corruption and also developed a successful workshop for implementing corporate ethics and CSR for a major African business.  We are currently developing a programme designed to build capacity in African local and central government to help create awareness of good governance and to strengthen anti-corruption measures.”

“Africans have enormous potential to translate the continent’s natural riches into strong economies and thriving societies.  What we focus on is helping to make that transition happen by building on the capacity and skills of Africa’s talent.”

As a company run by Africans based in the UK, accessing the skills of qualified Africans in the Diaspora for the continent forms a key part of the Interims agenda. In response to interest from younger, less experienced people to contribute to African development, the company established its Graduates for Development programme in early 2004.  Although less seasoned than the typical Interim, young graduates with high potential provide affordable short-term skilled resources for small and medium sized African enterprises.

The company also works in partnership to assist qualified young Africans in the UK to overcome barriers to obtaining highly skilled employment and facilitates internship opportunities with employers in Africa. 

Such internships offer the receiving businesses inexpensive skilled human resources and provide interns with experience and networking opportunities as well as an entry point for the eventual return of their much-needed skills back into Africa.