IDC boosts CSI spend in aid of skills and rural development

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) through its Corporate Social Investment (CSI), allocated R77 802 955.00 over a four year period (2009 – 2013) to fund development projects.

In a bid to boost development in rural areas and marginalised communities, the IDC will almost double its budget for CSI in 2012/13. It sees CSI as an important complement to its core mandate, which is to build industrial capacity development, especially in initiatives that support employment creation.

The IDC will spend R37 million on corporate social investments (CSI) in 2012/13, with around half going for education, supporting basic education and skills development.  This is in line with the Basic Education Accord signed at NEDLAC in 2011, in support of The New Growth Path.

Almost R10 million will support 18 poor schools nationally which will be adopted by the IDC for a period of 3 – 5 years, focussing on providing maths and science at a high level. A model of the whole school development will be implemented with the aim of improving the quality of the education outcome in each of the schools.

“The focus of the IDC on promoting basic education and skills development lays the basis for longer term, sustainable industrial development, “said Ebrahim Patel, Minister of Economic Development

Minister Patel further added,” more companies and other private sector groupings should be encouraged to follow the example to invest in skills development.”

Given government’s focus on improving skills, at least R7 million will be spent on supporting FET colleges and university programmes that are aligned to the addressing critical skills development. The balance is earmarked for supporting sustainable livelihood projects which are aimed at enabling micro or survivalist community enterprises to generate income for poverty alleviation.

The IDC’s CSI also spends on the refurbishment of public health facilities through partnerships with other NGOs in the healthcare sector.

Below is the table of the IDC’s CSI spending from 2009 – 2013 as well as its Education programme (Table 1).

Table 1. Breakdown on CSI

The IDC also provides Business Development Sponsorship which is specifically targeted towards developing new business. The Business Development Sponsorship over the four year period (2009 – 2013) totals R37 824 000.00.

Table 2: Education