Bell Pottinger Business & Brand will work with a new NGO called Advance Aid to publicise its efforts to shake up the global supply chain for emergency aid products.
Meanwhile, Good Relations has been asked by UK-based Adaptive Eyewear to launch a programme that aims to correct the sight of an estimated 7.5 million Rwandans.
Advance Aid wants to publicise its work helping African companies make emergency aid products. Currently non-food items such as blankets, mosquito nets and cooking equipment are imported, often from India or China.
Advance Aid believes supporting African SMEs to manufacture these products will cut costs for aid agencies and UN agencies.
Bell Pottinger Business & Brand MD Kevin Read said the agency would attempt to 'get the message across about how they can really make a difference to the local African economy, save emergency aid agencies money and ultimately save lives'.
Adaptive Eyewear, meanwhile, took on PR support following a four-way pitch. Good Relations will provide strategic comms advice and launch support for 'Vision for a Nation'.
The NGO will use self- prescribing eyeglasses to allow people to correct their own sight, under supervision from a trained health worker.
'In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 95 per cent of people who need eyeglasses do not own a pair,' said Adaptive Eyewear chairman James Chen.
