Press Release

OFID presents Annual Award to HUMANA
Organization honored for contributions to sustainable development

56/2006 June 13, 2006, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) today presented its first Annual Award for Development to the Harare, Zimbabwe-based HUMANA People to People, a non-governmental organization (NGO) engaged in activities to assist the poor and improve living conditions in less privileged parts of the world.   HUMANA People to People is part of a federation network, “Development Aid from People to People (DAPP)” founded in 1977 in Denmark.

The NGO received the US$100,000 award in a ceremony here in Jeddah, against the backdrop of the 27th Annual Session of the Ministerial Council of OFID. The Fund established the award to recognize “valuable contributions to the promotion of development.” 

In a citation, OFID Director-General, Suleiman Jasir Al-Herbish, disclosed that OFID established the award “to recognize achievement in our common battle for development.” He said the OPEC Fund was convinced that the world should be able to end, or at least control, most of the difficulties facing humanity. He said OFID took pride in giving this first award to Humana, convinced of the NGO’s dedication to the principles and ideals which OFID, and indeed OFID Member Countries, uphold.

Accepting the award on behalf of Humana, Mrs. Maria Darsbo, Chairperson, spoke of a special honor at being the very first recipient of the US$100,000 award. She thanked the Council, the Governing Board and Director-General for several years of assistance to her NGO in the work they did across southern Africa. “Just like the OPEC Fund,” Humana, she said, was “working to help accomplish the Millennium Development Goals” and to support sustainable development as well as poverty alleviation in all their ramifications. She said “thousands of Humana employees and volunteers are encouraged” that their day-to-day efforts have been recognized by the OFID first award.

Humana had begun its work in Africa as an ad hoc undertaking, collecting goods and food items from people in Denmark for refugee camps in Mozambique harboring Zimbabwean refugees, who had fled at the time from erstwhile northern Rhodesia.  Between 1980 and 1985, Humana expanded its efforts to cover other African countries - Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and Zambia, as well as some Scandinavian and European countries. In 2005, HUMANA was re-structured.  It is now domiciled in Geneva, Switzerland, while the international headquarters still is in Zimbabwe.