The Gauteng Department of Public Transport, Roads and Works has contributed R1-million to the Ikageng Community Development Trust, a private-public partnership launched in January.
The trust’s first pilot project is at Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg.
Funded by the MTN Foundation, Johnnic and Compaq, with the support of other corporate sponsors, Ikageng has committed about R3-million in two phases to the Orange Farm project.
Ikageng, meaning “build yourselves”, aims to assist communities to achieve sustainable, long-term economic development.
The Orange Farm project includes the upgrading of Isikhumbuso Secondary School, the creation of a business centre and the provision of a clinic, a skills training centre and a community bank.
MTN and Compaq will assist the community to develop IT community centres, which will provide a vehicle for online education for schoolchildren and adults.
The project will also house the Orange Farm radio station, which has obtained a community radio licence.
At the launch of the project, Ikageng chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa expressed delight that corporate South Africa had joined forces with the government to address one of the most pressing needs in South Africa ? the provision of sustainable upliftment to underprivileged communities.
Gauteng MEC for Public Transport, Roads and Works Khabisi Moshunkutu described the Ikageng project as an “innovative approach to sustainable development and one that provincial government felt warranted financial and other forms of support”.
The Ikageng project could not have come at a better time ? a few months before the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August.
Paul Edwards, group CEO of M-Cell/MTN, says “there is close synergy between the objectives of the Ikageng project and those of the world summit, focusing as they both do on people-centred development, poverty eradication and social development”.
The intention is to complete the first phases of the Orange Farm project prior to the summit, so that the delegates will be able to visit Orange Farm and experience its progress first hand.
Compaq corporate relations manager Wendy Millin says Ikageng has generated much interest from overseas donors.
It is modelled to overcome previous problems in models for sustainable development ? designed as a community-based programme, whereby the communities themselves organise leadership structures and identify areas where Ikageng can assist them, and then form a project team that works in conjunction with the Ikageng team.
“This overcomes previous problems where communities felt that solutions were being imposed on them that did not take due account of the community’s real needs and wants,” said Millin.
In addition to its corporate sponsors, Ikageng has the support of the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Social Development and the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
It has also received considerable support from the World Bank and the National Productivity Institute.
Ikageng’s trustees and funders want to replicate the Ikageng model in other African countries, with Angola and Rwanda currently targeted for possible projects.