Creating Value with the Future in Mind - Anglo American South Africa

Promoting healthcare in
the broader community
Our comprehensive socio-economic
assessments in local communities
include community health
assessments. Taking these
assessments into account, we
develop social management plans in
consultation with key stakeholders,
which factor in health considerations.
In an effort to support health in
developing countries more broadly,
we remain one of the key privatesector
supporters of the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria and the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI),
a public/private partnership that is
increasing access to immunisation
in the world’s poorest countries.
Investments in community health
We use the knowledge and experience
gained from our workplace health
programmes to support community
outreach programmes and strengthen
community health systems. There
are seven building blocks to
strengthening healthcare systems:
improving facilities and equipment;
ensuring the availability of a skilled
health workforce; improving
procurement and supply chain
processes; sound financial
management; information systems;
good governance; and effective
monitoring and evaluation processes.
In South Africa, we are working with
the provincial health departments in
Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Northern
Cape and North West provinces, which
are all associated with our operations
or are labour-sending areas, in order
to improve health services. In the
Northern Cape, Kumba Iron Ore
has financed nine mobile clinics to
take critical health services to
disadvantaged communities in the
remote John Taolo Gaetsewe district,
which faces serious health challenges
and severely limited access to
healthcare. Kumba will gradually hand
over the project to the Department of
Health, thereby ensuring the long-term
viability of the initiative.
We are
recognised
leaders for our
HIV/AIDS and
TB programmes
in the workplace,
where we have
demonstrated
that investing in
HIV prevention,
treatment and
care has a
measurable and
positive impact
on business
performance.
Partnering with Reprolatina
Our Barro Alto nickel operation
strives to play a constructive and
influential role in promoting social
and environmental stability in the
nearby city of Barro Alto, and to
ensure that our activities have a
positive impact on host communities.
In addition to investing $5 million
to date in the city’s infrastructure,
including schools and a hospital, we
endeavour to recognise and respond
to prevailing social, sexual and
reproductive health concerns.
A concerning trend highlighted in
2010 was the number of pregnancies
among adolescents in the Barro Alto
community and the lack of
information and attention given
to this group. With an estimated
population of about 8,700 people,
with adolescents making up
about 1,600 (18.5%), the influx
of approximately 6,000 workers
at the Barro Alto project during
construction heightened our
sense of responsibility to ensure
that Anglo American helped to
address the problem, rather than
exacerbate it.
Partnering with the local municipality
and Reprolatina – an NGO dedicated
to empowering women to decrease
gender inequality and giving
technical support to improve the
sexual and reproductive health of
the disadvantaged population in
Latin America – we implemented
a programme to promote healthy
lifestyles in the Goiás region.
Over the past two years the
programme has promoted a culture
of healthy reproductive and sexual
life among Barro Alto’s population,
especially adolescents and
youth. Through a combination
of research, action and education,
the project seeks to decrease
vulnerabilities to unwanted
pregnancy, sexually transmitted
infections, HIV/AIDS, drug use,
violence, sexual exploitation
and other aspects of sexual and
reproductive health. Success has
hinged on building the local technical
capacities of providers of health
services and educators and
adolescents at schools, as well
as on empowering women.
Since 2010, Anglo American
has invested $700,000 in this
programme and the results have
been impressive – endorsing the
success of the partnership between
government, private sector and
civil society. The percentage of
adolescent pregnancies registered
in ante-natal care per year was 40%
of the total pregnancies in 2010.
That figure decreased to 16% in
2012 and the use of contraceptive
methods, including emergency
contraception, sharply increased
in adolescents. The number of
people who have benefited from
and registered for any of the
programme’s educational
activities during the project had
reached 17,564 at year end.
Image
Healthcare promoters, teenage volunteers
and health professionals meet with Reprolatina
in the city of Barro Alto.
Investing in our people
Anglo American plc Sustainable Development Report 2012 51