Citi recognized at the 4th Health & Environment National Excellence Awards Ceremony
Citibank N.A. Pakistan was among the ten corporations that took home the highly-coveted Health & Environment Excellence award for outstanding Corporate Social Responsibility. The winners, saluted at an awards ceremony recently, were lauded for both the execution of successful CSR initiatives and for effectively communicating those efforts to various constituencies. Mr. Askari Taqvi, Provincial Minister for Environment and Alternative Energy, gave away the awards to representatives of the winning organizations at a ceremony in Karachi.
The Awards program, jointly organized since 2005 by the Help International Welfare Trust (HIWT) and the CSR Association of Pakistan, attracted 57 entries representing a diverse range of sectors from across the country. It recognizes and honors companies in Pakistan for their projects and programs in corporate social responsibility. The selection process is based on efforts in Best Workplace Practices, Concern for Health, Environmental Excellence, Poverty Alleviation and Support and Improvement of Education.
Key factors that led to the judges’ decision included Citi’s efforts in Poverty Alleviation via its long standing work in the development of corporate governance standards and the local microfinance sector particularly via the establishment of the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards, the Citi Network Strengthening Program, financial literacy partnerships in interior Sind as well as its education and vocational training initiatives.
Also considered was Citi’s commitment to fostering and encouraging employee volunteerism. Speaking at the award presentation, which was attended by senior staff from across several business sectors, the President of the Association S. Arif Ali congratulated Citibank N.A. Pakistan on the consistency of its efforts and highlighted the bank’s impressive record both via its philanthropic arm Citi Foundation and through its structured encouragement of employee volunteerism. Other awardees included Shell Pakistan, Engro VoPak, Essa Laboratories, Descon and Pakistan Electronics.
Accepting the award, Yawer Shameem Head of Compliance at Citibank N.A. Pakistan, said, “At Citi, we aspire to be known as a company dedicated to community service, taking a leadership role in every local community around the world in which we operate, and making a positive difference in the communities where we live and work.”
Citi Pakistan was the only financial institution to win a similar award at the 2007 CSR Awards.
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