PMFORUM Breaking News
Breaking News in the Project Management World
Monday, February 01, 2010
Project with a difference: Job Creation.
Reported by Jaycee Krüger in Johannesburg
The UN agency, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has hailed mining giant Anglo American for committing to generate jobs in South Africa. This project will see the creation of more jobs, the support of entrepreneurship and the boosting of local economies.
This announcement makes Anglo American the first company from the extractive industry to have a project accepted by Business Call to Action (BCtA), a global initiative challenging companies to apply their business expertise, technology and innovative spirit to tackling poverty and contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs are eight anti-poverty targets that respond to the world's main development challenges, with a 2015 deadline, adopted by 189 world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000. The Goals represent a global commitment to promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health and gender equality and aim to combat child mortality, AIDS and other diseases. Since 2008, 19 companies have developed business initiatives that contribute to the attainment of the MDGs and to their own commercial success.
The next 7 years will see 12 enterprise development hubs established in areas experiencing high unemployment in South Africa, spurring the creation of 25,000 new jobs in up to 1,500 new businesses across the country over the next seven years.
Anglo American's Anglo Zimele enterprise development fund, part of the long-established Anglo Zimele programme, will facilitate mentoring and financing for small business start-ups. The most vulnerable segments of society will be targeted, and access will be provided to supply chain opportunities.
Said Cynthia Carroll, Chief Executive of Anglo American: "We are delighted that the expansion of Anglo American's long-established Anglo Zimele programme has been recognized by the BCtA and we are continuing to review further opportunities to grow this successful and enormously valuable community
programme." Plans are underway to expand the programme to Chile and Brazil in the near future.
"Long-term economic growth is vital to the fight against global poverty and business investment is vital to building economic growth," said Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator. "Today, business leaders are rewriting the value equation to show that true worth comes not only from profits but from making a positive difference."
For more information, visit http://www.angloamerican.co.uk and http://www.un.org/news
The UN agency, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has hailed mining giant Anglo American for committing to generate jobs in South Africa. This project will see the creation of more jobs, the support of entrepreneurship and the boosting of local economies.
The MDGs are eight anti-poverty targets that respond to the world's main development challenges, with a 2015 deadline, adopted by 189 world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000. The Goals represent a global commitment to promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health and gender equality and aim to combat child mortality, AIDS and other diseases. Since 2008, 19 companies have developed business initiatives that contribute to the attainment of the MDGs and to their own commercial success.
The next 7 years will see 12 enterprise development hubs established in areas experiencing high unemployment in South Africa, spurring the creation of 25,000 new jobs in up to 1,500 new businesses across the country over the next seven years.
Anglo American's Anglo Zimele enterprise development fund, part of the long-established Anglo Zimele programme, will facilitate mentoring and financing for small business start-ups. The most vulnerable segments of society will be targeted, and access will be provided to supply chain opportunities.
Said Cynthia Carroll, Chief Executive of Anglo American: "We are delighted that the expansion of Anglo American's long-established Anglo Zimele programme has been recognized by the BCtA and we are continuing to review further opportunities to grow this successful and enormously valuable community
programme." Plans are underway to expand the programme to Chile and Brazil in the near future.
"Long-term economic growth is vital to the fight against global poverty and business investment is vital to building economic growth," said Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator. "Today, business leaders are rewriting the value equation to show that true worth comes not only from profits but from making a positive difference."
For more information, visit http://www.angloamerican.co.uk and http://www.un.org/news