LUSAKA—Pan-African communications consultancy APO Group and its clients have won five African SABRE Awards, more than any other firm in this year’s competition. The work covered campaigns for the Basketball Africa League, the Jack Ma Foundation, and not-for-profit Mercy Ships.

Global agency BCW and South African firm Retroviral will take home four trophies each. Other multiple winners include Ogilvy South Africa, and Razor PR / M&C Saatchi Group  (three trophies each) and Edelman, Hill+Knowlton, MSL, P&L Consulting and WE Communications (two each).

The winners will receive their trophies at the African SABRE Awards ceremony on May 18, which will take place as part of the Africa Public Relations Association’s annual conference in Lusaka, Zambia.

“Agencies and clients from Africa performed extraordinarily well in our EMEA SABRE competition earlier this year,” said Paul Holmes, who chaired the SABRE judges in both competitions. “The quality of work from across the continent has never been higher. Robust data and smart cultural insights are informing the planning process, big bold creative ideas are driving the execution, and real business-related metrics are showing how successful these campaigns are.”

In addition to the 40 winners announced today (a complete list can be found here), PRovoke Media is also announcing five finalists for the Platinum SABRE for the best campaign in the competition overall. They are:

Be You Period — Lil-Lets with Retroviral
Keep Walking Africa Top 30 — Johnnie Walker and Trace with Celebrity Services Africa, Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Groupe
Mercy Ships Africa Celebrations — Mercy Ships with APO Group
Reimagining Mental Health — Investec Life with Razor PR / M&C Saatchi Group SA
Vodacom Africa.Connected - Working together towards an inclusive, digital future — Vodacom with WE Communications
The winner of the Platinum SABRE will be announced at the SABRE ceremony.