UNICEF Inspire Awards 2020
Most Successful Media Moment & Best in Brand
UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire’s successful communication campaign for its recycled plastic brick project was recognised at this year’s UNICEF Inspire Awards. At the event, UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire was presented with two awards: Most Successful Media Moment and Best in Brand.
UNICEF Inspire Awards is an annual global event aiming to encourage the sharing of experiences, good practices and lessons learned, and to recognise the work done by UNICEF offices around the world in private sector fundraising, advocacy, communication and engagement. There are 22 categories and 4 special prizes, including: Best in Brand, Best Fundraising Campaign, People’s Choice Award and the Inspire Award 2020.
Most Successful Media Moment
UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire was awarded the Most Successful Media Moment award for its successful media campaign on its recycled plastic brick project, which reached 1.8 billion people globally, gathered support from the government, inspired young people to take climate action, and mobilised more than 12.4 million USD in 2019.
UNICEF Côte d'Ivoire partnered with Conceptos Plásticos, a Colombian social enterprise, to transform Côte d'Ivoire’s plastic waste into safe and sustainable building materials to construct urgently-needed classrooms for children.
The project has three main objectives:
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Contribute to making the planet greener.
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Build schools for children.
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Help lift women out of poverty by strengthening the plastic recycling market and the circular economy.
The first plastic brick factory was built in 2019 in Abidjan. It was the first of its kind in Africa. UNICEF committed to building 528 classrooms by the end of 2021 to provide a safe learning environment to 26,400 students. So far, 42 classrooms have been built.
In 2019, we developed a communication strategy with the main objective of promoting this innovative recycled plastic brick project and giving it the highest visibility to gather support, build donor loyalty and encourage new donations.
The objectives of the media strategy were to:
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Raise awareness about the project internally, nationally and globally.
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Gather support locally and nationally to be able to bring this innovation to life and to scale.
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Fundraise globally to mobilise the resources needed to build the factory in Côte d’Ivoire and construct classrooms, toilets, a health storage and so much more!
A global press release was sent out to media around the world when UNICEF announced it had broken ground on the first-of-its-kind factory: UNICEF breaks ground on Africa’s first-of-its-kind recycled plastic brick factory in Côte d'Ivoire.
The project was featured in top-tier media around the world, including:
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The New York Times: Less Trash, More Schools — One Plastic Brick at a Time
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Euronews: Turning Plastic into Waste
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El Mundo: Con plástico reciclado se construyen miles de aulas de clase en África
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RFI: En Côte d'Ivoire, on construit des écoles en briques de plastique recyclé
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CGTN: Plastic bricks used to build classrooms in Cote d'Ivoire
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France 24: Classrooms made from recycled plastic waste come to Ivory Coast
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Daily Mail: Ivory Coast uses plastic waste to build classrooms
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Radio Télévision Ivoirienne: UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire va construire 500 salles de classe en briques de plastiques recyclés sur les deux prochaines années
Thanks to its solid media strategy, UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire achieved a potential reach of 1.8 billion people globally and was mentioned 638 in the media. A sentiment analysis revealed that 56% of media coverage was positive and 44% neutral (see the complete media analysis).
Special Award - Best in Brand
In addition to our media strategy, we also built a plastic brick classroom display at the climate change-themed UN General Assembly in September 2019.
While young people around the world were taking to the streets to demand climate actions from leaders around the world, this project showed a concrete solution at the right time. The project was then featured in a Forbes op-ed by UNICEF’s Executive Director titled The World’s Children Need Clean Water, Clean Air And A Safe Climate. More top-tier media covered the story in NYC and on the ground, including Al Jazeera, who broadcasted live from the classroom display.
Media content was amplified on social media by UNICEF offices around the world, influencers and stakeholders, including the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, the World Economic Forum, NowThis and UNICEF Global Goodwill Ambassador Muzoon.
UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire
UNICEF Global and National Committees
Stakeholders and Influencers
Media
At the national level, we also organised a series of visits with hundreds of people who shared their concerns on social media. They were invited to visit our Innovation Centre – built with plastic bricks – so that they could see the project and ask questions. Most of them then became online ambassadors of the project and responded to concerns raised by other social media users.
Thank you!
None of this would have been possible without our partners. First, our thanks go to Conceptos Plásticos, our partner in this amazing adventure. We also thank the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Hygiene and Sanitation as well as the Ministry of Water and Forest. Finally, we would like to thank our donors, including MSC Foundation, the Governments of Canada and South Korea, and UNICEF Switzerland, Spain, Germany, USA, Belgium, Luxemburg, United Kingdom, Netherlands and France for their support to kick-start this initiative and build a better future for children.
