Anglo American Platinum Limited |
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Community Development
Using the socio-economic assessment toolkit at Unki Mine, Zimbabwe
In September 2009 Anglo Platinum undertook a socio-economic assessment for its Unki Mine operation, situated in Zimbabwe. The assessment was aligned with the Company's socio-economic assessment toolkit (SEAT) requirements and addressed the following four main issues:
- An analysis of the mine’s community and other stakeholders.
- The identification of Unki's key impacts on the communities affected by the mine.
- An assessment of existing community development initiatives.
- The identification of necessary management measures.
The initiative was a collaborative effort featuring the following parties: Unki's human resources department, SEAT-trained specialists from SRK Consulting, a team of fieldwork assistants with experience in participatory research, and a Zimbabwean consultant familiar with the project. The project was informed by extensive project planning, which was followed by three weeks of participatory research involving both key informants and focus-group interviews with members of the relevant communities.
The research gave rise to a series of documents providing the mine with a detailed framework for contributing to sustainable development in the area. Included among the tools supplied were: a socio-economic baseline study, a socio-economic impact assessment, a stakeholder database, a community development plan and a general SEAT report.
The SEAT report stated that:
- Unki Mine and its management had initiated a number of important activities around social development in the area. These related to consultation with stakeholders; the building of HIV/AIDS awareness; the support of health, education, water and sanitation provision; and the furtherance of local community capacity, development and partnerships; and
- several aspects would require focused effort in future. These were the internalisation of the Group's social policies and practices, including HIV/ AIDS programmes; local participation in and development of procurement and employment; the monitoring of resettlement processes; stakeholder engagement; community health and safety; and the ongoing planning of the mine's eventual closure based on environmentally sound principles.
The report has thus provided the mine with the means to manage social and economic development issues in neighbouring communities proactively. It promotes and enhances widespread stakeholder engagement through a more inclusive approach, shifting decision-making away from the mine and allowing stakeholders to identify sustainable community development initiatives for themselves. By adopting a participatory and collective method to managing social and economic development, the mine will be better able to address stakeholder issues identified during the SEAT assessment.
