Four-and-a-half years since its launch, the Anglo American Municipal Capability and Partnership Programme (MCPP) is yielding results in helping to strengthen municipalities in the areas where the company operates.

With over R150-million invested in the programme so far, the MCPP was established as a vehicle for collaboration and to work with other stakeholders such as industry, business, municipalities and nongovernmental organisations to improve the state of service delivery and to plan and prepare for the post-mining future.

South Africa’s challenges around governance, logistics and transport, water, electricity and wastewater treatment, as well as access to quality housing, education, health and job opportunities, are common in mining communities, but interventions are often not implemented in a sustainable way, says Anglo.

The programme is anchored in the broader Collaborative Regional Development (CRD) initiative, a partnership model pioneered by the company and designed to foster sustainable economic and social development, and contributing towards improving delivery of basic services across the company’s operating regions.

MCPP works with teams in participating municipalities to address critical problems and collaborate on finding and sharing best practices and solutions that address challenges experienced within local government programmes.

These include aspects such as spatial development planning, local economic development, water services and asset management. The programme’s footprint is within Anglo’s host communities in Limpopo, North West and the Northern Cape.

The company says one of the successes of the programme so far has been in Limpopo’s Fetakgomo Tubatse municipality, where a partnership to produce food and income security has benefitted 886 of the area’s most vulnerable youth, women and disabled people.

It adds that, at the start of the initiative, half of the participants had not planted anything before.

The company also notes that, for the Mogalakwena municipality in Limpopo, repairs to infrastructure have prevented water wastage, which has resulted in a reduction in non-revenue water from 70% in 2021 to 62% this year.

It notes that the water leaks repair initiative has seen 158 leaks fixed out of the 230 that have been identified so far, which has resulted in reduction of water losses from 57% in 2022 to 51% this year.

One of the challenges in Limpopo’s Blouberg municipality was the inability to complete capital projects, says Anglo.

“With the MCPP working very closely with the project management unit, and supporting with in-service coaching and technical support, the municipality has been enabled to complete capital projects on time, and within budget. This resulted in the municipality receiving an additional R10-million grant for the 2023/24 financial year,” it says.

Additionally, in Gamagara, a municipality in the Northern Cape, collaboration with the water team has seen good progress in addressing the challenge of water and wastewater operations and maintenance.

In 2020, only about 40% of water reticulation assets were mapped, and there was no data on operations and maintenance (O&M), which made development of O&M plans difficult.

By 2023, 80% of reticulation assets had been mapped, and work to develop O&M plans is now under way.

This is critical to ensure proper maintenance of infrastructure, which is critical for communities and the town economy, the company says.

“These are just some of the highlights of the programme so far. There is so much that we can share about our journey and progress so far, which we hope will motivate both the government and other private-sector players to partner in this way.

“We have seen first-hand how much impact this kind of collaboration can have – together we can tackle the developmental challenges our municipalities face and improve the entire ecosystem,” says Anglo MCPP programme manager Musa Jack.

He explains that the MCPP has shown that there is value in starting small, working together and keeping interventions sustainable.

“Development is not only about catalytic projects, but also an ongoing commitment that requires change in behaviour and alignment of investments. The idea of co-creation and collaboration is at the heart of this approach – we must work side by side with municipalities and strengthen them, enabling them to deliver optimally to the citizens they serve,” she notes.

Successfully functioning local government structures are in everyone’s interest, she adds, pointing out that the challenges South Africa’s municipalities face can only be overcome through willingness of all parties to collaborate and partner.

Through programmes such as the MCPP, Anglo says business and civil society can play a direct, visible and measurable role with government in finding solutions to the service delivery challenges that have become part and parcel of life in many parts of South Africa.

“The Anglo American MCPP is in line with the call for private sector to partner with government in addressing the challenges of local government and from SALGA we have a deep appreciation for the contribution that Anglo American is making through the MCPP, to improve service delivery for our communities,” comments South African Local Government Association (SALGA) portfolio head Nkosinathi Mthethwa.