Capacity Building for Women and Municipalities, South Africa
Background | Project Objectives | Description | Achievements
PROJECT STATUS: CLOSED
PARTNER/CLIENT NAME: Lonmin, Madibeng Local Municipality
COUNTRY/REGION: South Africa, Africa
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOCUS: Capacity Building, Community Engagement, Gender Mainstreaming
MINING SECTOR: Mining
BACKGROUND
Large-scale mining has been active in South Africa for over 100 years, and yet many local areas have little to show from this huge extraction of wealth. Cognizant of this history, Lonmin, the world’s 3rd largest platinum miner, embarked on a program to transform its relationship with the communities in which it operates. Lonmin is working with its community partners to create and realize a forty-year vision for a safe and prosperous community. In order to maximize its efforts, Lonmin recognizes the benefit of working more closely with the other key stakeholders in the area - the immediate area of the Greater Lonmin Community is relatively small, approximately 300,000 people. In 2007, Lonmin entered into a 3-year Advisory Services partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The partnership aimed to help Lonmin promote sustainable economic development in the area surrounding its mining operations in South Africa. IFC agreed to serve as a strategic development partner to aid Lonmin in 5 main areas of intervention identified (see objectives below) as part of the Lonmin Advisory Services Program to bolster Lonmin's development impact through its Social and Labor Plan (SLP).
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the program are to: 1. Local Supplier Development – to build wealth in the local community through developing and contracting local businesses as suppliers to Lonmin by developing 60 local suppliers with R400million (US$60 million) worth of contracts.
2. Joint Supply Chain Initiative – bring IFC, and the provincial governments of NW and Limpopo Provinces together with 4 leading mining firms - AngloPlatinum, Impala, Xstrata and Lonmin, in a joint effort to build a supply park in the NW and Limpopo Provinces.
3. Women in Mining – support Lonmin to sustainably hire and retain 5-10% women across Lonmin's workforce by 2010 as stipulated in Lonmin's Social and Labor Plan (SLP).
4. HIV/AIDS Risk Mitigation – roll out an intensive community and workplace HIV/AIDS prevention programs to decrease the number of STI and HIV infections by working through Peer Educators that promote wellness practices.
5. Community Development – strengthen the capacity of Lonmin, local municipalities, and the Bapo Ba Mogale (Traditional Authority) to better jointly deliver community development projects.
DESCRIPTION
CommDev provided both technical and financial support the Gender Mainstreaming and Community Development components of the program. key actvities of these components included:
Women in Mining:
• Undertake an employment equity review; and develop WIM-related policies and procedures.
• Develop systems for the sustainable recruitment and retention of women at Lonmin.
• Provide gender mainstreaming related training to Lonmin staff.
Community Development:
• Develop infrastructure plans and structures to improve the capacity of Madibeng Municipality.
• Establish a forum where mines, municipalities, organized labor and the Traditional Authority can jointly plan and implement community projects.
• Develop policies and procedures to improve the governance capacity of the Traditional Authority.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Click here to watch a video highlighting the program's key achievements.
1. Local Supplier Development – 305 contracts worth ZAR318 million / US$45.4 million awarded to 45 local SMEs were facilitated by the program. 4 of these contracts were Joint Venture deals between SMEs and expert mining contractors and also facilitated by the program. Over 120 daily business development training sessions with over 1,000 participant attendance from 147 people from over 85 GLC companies 2. Joint Supply Chain Initiative – Pre-feasibility study completed. 3. Women in Mining – Women constitute 7% of workforce. Women employment targets set as part of line managers' performance objectives. Lonmin WIM champion appointed, Lonmin WIM Officer position created. 4 WIM related policies developed/amended as well as related procedures. Sexual harassment grievance procedures, campaign and training were developed and rolled out. 4. HIV/AIDS Risk Mitigation – 542 trained peer volunteers, both in the workplace and the community. 9,995 HIV/AIDS awareness info sessions conducted reaching over 195,000 people. Over 2.4m condoms distributed in the workplace and the community. Over 100,000 regular home care visits to terminally-ill patients and orphans. 5. Community Development – 13 multi-stakeholder development forum meetings held, including development of monitoring tools for joint planning and implementation of projects. Geographical Information System (GIS) upgraded and operationalised for Madibeng Local Municipality (MLM) and Infrastructure planning capacity review and support completed for MLM.
Click here to view the breadth of stakeholder engagement that Lonmin undertakes, beyond the support provided by IFC and CommDev.
Lonmin 2009 Sustainable Development Report
Lonmin 2008 Sustainable Development Report
Country/Region:
FEATURED RESOURCES
2009
Given that mining is historically a male-dominated sector, companies and their systems, staff and workers are often not ready to seamlessly absorb women into the workplace. Significant cultural and systems changes are being made by the Lonmin-IFC program in the Preparation, Recruitment, Development and Retention of women.
2009
This manual provides a conceptual framework and a step-by-step guide to integrating women into the mining sector, as well as into other extractive and heavy industries. Successful integration of women ensures greater benefits for local communities and creates a more just and equitable society. The integration of women into these historically male-dominated industries is not easy, but when it is done well, it can have a transformative effect.
13 Nov 2008
A joint IFC-Lonmin supplier development program that supports sustainable growth in mining communities in South Africa has taken top prize in the socio-economic category at the Nedbank Green Mining Awards, which celebrates responsible mining.