DAR-ES-SALAAM—Nineteen different public relations agencies will be honored for their work with clients in Africa when they receive African SABRE Awards trophies during the African Public Relations Association conference next month.

South African firm Razor, owned by M&C Saatchi Group leads the way with five trophies, ahead of multinational agencies BCW and Edelman and the African operations of UK corporate and financial specialist Instinctif Partners.

There are two trophies each for pan-African consultancy APO Group (which has its African offices in Senegal); Gong communications, a UK firm with an office in Kenya; Portland, a UK firm with South African operations; Redhouse Group of Kenya; Retroviral of South Africa; and US-based international agency WE Communications.

In addition, five campaigns were shortlisted for the Platinum SABRE Award, which recognizes the best campaign of the year:

  • #ItsUpToUS—Mastercard Foundation with Engage BCW Kenya
  • #RewriteOurProverbs to #WriteOffGBV—Green Door with Clockwork
  • Driving a positive reputational shift and steadily guiding a change in perception—Omnia Holdings with Instinctif Partners Africa
  • Every Stage of Women— MSI Reproductive Choices and Marie Stopes Ghana with Portland Communications
  • Reputation in the can—Tiger Brands Limited with Razor (M&C Saatchi Group SA)

“It is fair to say that we have never seen so much good work from so many firms, including international agencies with growing African operations, and indigenous firms from multiple markets,” said Paul Holmes, chair of the SABRE jury. “We have never had so many entries from Africa and we have never celebrated so many different winners.

“What we have seen over the past few years in Africa is the investment of large multinationals in the continent, but also a wave of African entrepreneurship that has seen local firms across the continent producing high-quality creative and driving impressive media coverage and social engagement for their clients.”

The African SABRE Awards will be presented on Wednesday May 25 as part of the African Public Relations Association’s annual conference in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Tickets for the conference and the dinner are available online. A complete list of African SABRE winners and Certificate of excellence honorees can be found here.