Kenya wins its first ever Cannes Lions Grand Prix

The Partnership Agency wins the SDG category with a pay model for recovering dairy cows

Kenya has won its first ever Cannes Lions Grand Prix. The award came on the closing day of the festival in the Sustainable Development Goals Lions category, for the campaign Paid Sick Leave for Cows. Nairobi shop The Partnership Agency is behind the work, created for Kenyan dairy brand Too Good. It is the first Cannes Lions Grand Prix in the country's history.

In this category the jury reviewed 289 entries and awarded nine Lions: two Gold, two Silver, four Bronze and the Grand Prix. The Grand Prix goes to Paid Sick Leave for Cows, for Too Good, by The Partnership Agency Nairobi.

Paid sick leave for cows

Kenya has the highest per capita milk consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa. Eighty percent of milk production comes from smallholder farmers. One in four milk samples tests positive for antibiotics, because farmers cannot afford to stop production during the withdrawal period. That withdrawal period is the heart of the problem. When a cow receives antibiotics, its milk cannot be sold for several days to prevent contamination. Farmers then face a choice between following the rules and losing income, or selling milk that does not meet the standard.

The economics make the responsible choice the expensive one. Raising market prices is not an option, so Too Good and The Partnership Agency place the problem not with farmer behaviour but with the system around it. Inspired by the sick leave model, they decide to register cows as proper economic workers rather than livestock. The mechanism is deliberately low tech. Farmers apply for paid sick leave for a recovering cow via WhatsApp. Too Good validates the request and compensates the lost income across the withdrawal period.

27,000 dollars back to farmer

Within eight months the model returns 27,000 dollars to farmers for milk they had to withhold. Farmer income stays fully protected as a result. The campaign connects labour rights and agriculture and offers a different way to think about work and value within food systems. The reframing is the point: by treating a cow as a worker entitled to recovery time, the campaign turns a public health risk into a question of fair pay.

That structural quality is what carries the work. It is built to outlast a single activation, and the brand presents it as a model that other markets can copy. The result also puts a Nairobi agency and a local dairy brand at the centre of one of the festival's most demanding categories, a category that rewards ideas measured by real-world change rather than craft alone.

A jury that looked for systemic change

According to the jury the work goes beyond awareness. The assessment follows three questions: does the campaign create real change, does it durably transform the underlying system, and does the impact last after the campaign ends. The answer to all three is yes.

Kazoo Sato, Chief Creative Officer and CEO at Earth Centric Design and jury president of the Sustainable Development Goals Lions: "The jury awarded the Grand Prix to a brilliantly simple idea that creates lasting systemic change. It turns an apparent trade-off into shared value, for people, for business and for other species. It offers a replicable model for a more sustainable future." Sato calls the decision almost unanimous.

Campaign film (Too Good, Paid Sick Leave for Cows):