The Centre for Research and Business Development (CRBD) of the Christian Service University College (CSUC) has won a highly competitive consultancy bid from Gold Fields Ghana Limited (GFG).
The Centre, which represented the University College, was shortlisted together with three other Universities and a non-Ghanaian consultancy firm that has experience on similar projects elsewhere, including South Africa and Peru.
The project involved undertaking a Social Return on Investment (SROI) study on five (5) corporate social responsibility projects of GFG for the benefit of communities bordering its operational areas.
The Director for CRBD, Mr. Thomas Asafuah Wobil has mentioned that the Centre will focus on consultancies for two main reasons.
First, the consultancies will enable the University College to have direct interactions with various communities whose livelihoods depend on the related projects.
Second, the consultancies will be beneficial to give hands-on experience to the Masters’ students of the Monitoring and Evaluation Programme of CSUC, by engaging them on such projects related to their academic studies.
The Director further noted that upon undergoing such practical engagements to give the students rich market-oriented skills, CSUC students will have an edge over their counterparts elsewhere.
He indicated that, SROI study is ‘a new global paradigm’ which goes beyond the traditional impact studies to produce the financial computation of the social, economic and environmental impacts of projects on beneficiaries, to guide future allocation of resources.
