South Africa—Lonmin IFC SME Training and Development

This International Finance Corporation (IFC)-funded project worked to bring economic development and wealth to the local community by training local small and medium enterprises in the South African community where mining company Lonmin works. Lonmin, with the support and involvement of the IFC, launched a program to operationalize its Social Labour Plan (SLP) to bring economic development and wealth to the community of Marikana through the development and training of local small and medium enterprises to become competitive suppliers to the Lonmin Marikana Mines. Drawing on our experience designing and implementing long-term small and medium enterprise development and business linkages projects in Southern Africa, the implementation of the Lonmin-IFC SME training and development program was based on: Enterprise Diagnosis, Enterprise Reporting, and Enterprise Support.

Sample Activities

• Provide capacity building and support to Greater Lonmin Community (GLC) small and medium enterprises to set them on a growth path and position them to be better able to take advantage of Lonmin’s buying power and exploit other business opportunities in the area and the country at large.

Select Results

• Conducted 132 enterprise diagnostic sessions with 112 companies, both GLC suppliers and potential suppliers.
• Conducted 102 training sessions with 93 GLC SMEs covering a full spectrum of business management topics.
• Captured data from 180 small and medium enterprises on a database system.
• Set up financial and nonfinancial administrative systems for 20 GLC small and medium enterprises.
• Provided corporate governance and monitoring of 60 GLC companies.
• Provided incubation support (coaching and mentoring) for 25 companies.