The new Dakar-based site is set to provide training programmes to 1,000 managers belonging to the firm’s subsidiaries in West Africa including: Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal.

The company said other managers from Francophone countries like the Central African Republic, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo may also participate in training and courses offered at the campus.

According to Orange Group, the launch of Orange Campus Dakar demonstrates firm’s commitment to grooming its global subsidiaries to take charge of “certain events” directly.

Trainees will be provided with all the essential educational tools while also giving them specialized training sessions for local instructors.

Eight internal instructors have already been certified in Africa, the group revealed in a statement.

These actions will be applied to all the targeted countries, based on their requirements and resources. Each country will also be provided with the necessary support to permit them to independently apply the Orange Campus programmes.

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Over the next three years, Novartis will support the campaign financially and also donate up to three million full courses of its pediatric antimalarial drug to match the treatments donated by the public, doubling the impact of these donations.

“Malaria is a preventable and treatable disease, yet a child dies from malaria every minute,” the company said in an official statement.

“We believe that this innovative campaign will help speed malaria elimination,” said Joseph Jimenez, Novartis Chief Executive Officer.

“Novartis has been striving towards this goal for more than a decade, and we just reached the milestone of providing 600 million treatments without profit to patients in malaria-endemic countries. No one should die from malaria today.”

The development comes following the backdrop of global funding gaps and concern that the gains made to defeat Malaria could be reversed. The Power of One campaign aims to address this need by closing the global treatment gap between now and the end of 2015 through direct donations and existing government commitments.

“The Power of One campaign challenges the global public to help close the global treatment gap for malaria; every dollar raised will buy and deliver a full course of life-saving child treatment,” said Martin Edlund, CEO of Malaria No More. “We are delighted to be partnering with forward-thinking companies like Novartis to help end deaths from this disease — one dollar and one child at a time.”

Novartis alongside some of the world’s most innovative companies, including Alere who will be providing malaria rapid diagnostic tests, Time Warner, Twitter and others have joined forces to ensure the success of the Power of One campaign. The campaign will use the latest social, mobile, and e-commerce technologies to rally the global public to contribute to the campaign.

“Malaria is a complex issue and needs a multi-pronged collaborative approach. We can’t solve a problem like this on our own,” said Linus Igwemezie, Head of Novartis Malaria Initiative.

“Through partnerships, with organizations like Malaria No More, we can speed up progress toward the ultimate goal of malaria elimination.”

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According to Business Day Nigeria, the donation was announced at the weekend in Lagos during a visit to the office of the president of Dangote Foundation, by a delegation of UNICEF led by Jean Gough, the country representative.

Commenting, Gough said: “Public/private sector interventions such as these in the health sector and other sectors such as water, early childhood development are the way forward for Nigeria to improve the well-being of Nigerian children.”

Measles is a leading cause of child mortality in Nigeria, especially in areas where immunisation coverage is low.

According to report, the trend of measles follows a seasonal pattern with periods of high transmission (January to June with peaks in March) and low transmission (July to December).

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According to Telkom Foundation Head, Sarah Mthintso, “Entrepreneurship is an important vehicle towards job creation and it is for this reason that the foundation is investing in empowering entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs with the requisite skills and knowledge needed to venture into this area”

She stressed that Telkom aims to fight poverty and reduce unemployment of youth, graduates, and women through the programme.

Candidates have been selected from databases of various South African government agencies and other organizations working with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.

The training programme is aimed at different levels with varying criteria. The Telkom Foundation funding accommodates 100 unemployed youth graduates in Gauteng to receive Entrepreneurship Development training and mentorship; 100 unemployed youth with no businesses in the Northern Cape to receive Business Start-Up training and mentorship; 100 small business owners in the Free State to receive Basic Entrepreneurship training and mentorship.

Also, 50 business women in Gauteng to be trained and mentored within the Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme.

The training duration for the different programmes ranges from 5-10 days, and mentorship, which is support given to candidates after training, ranges from 30-50 days.

It is envisaged that similar initiatives will occur in other provinces.

The company noted in an official statement that: “The training programme is well researched and is set to make a meaningful, sustainable impact for the candidates.”

South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, with a population of 52 million people has a disturbing 23.9 percent rate of unemployment which has sparked various protest, youth unrest, and xenophobia.

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa and on the African continent. The group generated free cash flow of 2.1 billion rand ($237 milliom) for the year ended 31 March 2012.

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The 47-year-old Jalila Mezni started SAH after going through her own personal revolution in 1995. She quit her comfortable job as Vice-President of a Tunisian bank to start the business with her future husband Mounir el Jaiez. She had been with the government-supported bank for five years but its bureaucratic pace and the difficulty of getting capital to those who could use it best frustrated her. She saw an opportunity in the hygienic products industry and on the suggestion of a colleague, Jalila found a government program that provided her with cheap land and tax breaks in a poor area outside Tunis. Société D’Articles Hygiéniques was born.

Jalila kept her job during the start-up phase of the company but when they secured a bank loan and production got underway, she quit her job, moved home with her parents to save money and began her climb to success. Her weekdays began at 4am with a trip to the factory and Jalila and her 24 employees worked tirelessly around the clock, attempting to break into the sanitary napkin market. Their biggest competitor was Swedish paper- and hygiene-products manufacturer, Svenska Cellulosa AB, known as SCA. Speaking about their first few months in business, Jalila says, “we were very miserable”; they did not make a dent in the market.

Luck eventually shined on SAH as their competitor introduced a redesigned sanitary napkin to replace the most popular one. Jalila heard customers complain that the new design was uncomfortable and after securing a new loan to boost production of SAH’s sanitary napkins, sales began to climb. SAH expanded its factory and staff and soon, Jalila’s Lilas brand of sanitary napkins began to dominate sales in Tunisia. Today, Lilas claims over 45% share of the market for feminine care products and diapers.

Private equity became the next natural step for SAH as the couple negotiated expansion. “My husband and I had put everything in the company. We wanted to diversify our risk,” Mezni told The Africa Report. “I was worried that I would have an investor who wouldn’t understand me.” She was wary of the reputation of private equity managers eager to make quick profits and leave. After discussions with several firms including Kimberly-Clark Corporation, SAH settled on an investment from Emerging Capital Partners in 2008. ECP, a private equity firm with investments totalling over $1.8 billion across Africa, brought a $47 million investment to SAH and in the process acquiring 49 percent of the company’s shares.

The funds from ECP proved to be a worthy investment. The money went into revamping the company’s computer systems, boosting production and sales. After the ECP investment, the company’s turnover increased by 57 percent, employee numbers expanded from 700 to 1,080 and the company launched a manufacturing plant in Algeria in 2010 with plans for another one in Libya. In a country where national unemployment is as high as 20 percent, the jobs that SAH has created makes Jalila and her husband, a former soccer star, recognised and respected figures. 2010 closed with great success for SAH and plans to list the company on the Tunis stock exchange in 2011.

The Tunisian revolution however resulted in a difficult start to 2011. For two weeks in January, the Tunisian factory was shut down and major supermarkets cancelled big orders. For fear of looting during the riots, many stores refused to stock large amounts of any product. SAH management imposed round-the-clock shifts for factory staff to protect its equipment and commodities against looting. Combined with mobs setting fire to company warehouses and the war in Libya, domestic sales went down 40 percent and export volume dropped dramatically. The planned 2011 opening of a manufacturing plant in Tripoli, Libya was postponed. However as David Cooke, a director at private-equity firm Actis, an investor in the region that takes political risk into account, said after the conflict, “people still need to buy diapers.”

Indeed, SAH eventually recorded even higher sales in March, 2011 than the previous year as the relative calm that followed the turmoil released consumer demand. Jalila Mezni continues to run the affairs of SAH as president, with her husband making sure the company’s products are on store shelves. Together with ECP, they still dream of being listed on the stock exchange. In spite of the wars and political unrest, SAH continues to grow and flourish, expanding its reach in its own personal spring.

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This is among the first deals of its nature in South Africa as the country’s private sector has had a minimal contribution to the education of the country.

This deal will prompt a movement of listed companies acquiring companies that perform well but do not have great resources to educate the children.

Northern Academy was established in 1996 and has grown to the point that it has 3,900 learners, of which 2 200 live in the boarding facilities.

The school has consistently achieved a 100 percent matric pass rate, with 77 percent of pupils receiving a matric exemption. Roughly 80 percent of pupils take maths, science and accounting for matric.

The school is profitable and will push Curro from a loss making position to a profit position at year end.

Aside from the positive financial effect of the deal, this acquisition brings with it considerable intellectual property specifically in the community-schools market which is a focus area for the further expansion.

This is the second time in a week that Old Mutual Emerging Markets has made an acquisition.

Late last week, Old Mutual acquired a majority stake in AIVA, the Latin American distribution business, for an undisclosed sum.

It is believed this acquisition will strengthen Old Mutual’s distribution capability in emerging markets.

Old Mutual’s move shows that the company is steadfast in its resolve to focus only on emerging markets. It unveiled this strategy after its fingers were badly burnt in US when its life business lost billions in failed hedges.

In 2010, it sold its US life business to hedge fund Harbinger Capital for $350 million (£219 million) in a deal that helped the company pay down debt as it jettisoned businesses that hurt its financial position during the financial crisis.

The sale cut Old Mutual’s capital position by about £100m but reduced significantly its exposure to credit risk by shedding a business that was carrying mark-to-market losses of more than $2 billion at the depths of the crisis.

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Grootbos foundation is the non-profit arm of Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, an eco-tourism destination in the Walker Bay region of the Southern Cape committed to the conservation of biodiversity and the upliftment of local communities. It was established in 2003 to facilitate the environmental and social development practices of the nature reserve.

The Grootbos Foundation’s “Growing the Future Food Production and Life Skills Training” programme trains eight women annually on how to grow organic fruit and vegetables, using organic agriculture techniques, bee-keeping as well as the basic principles of successful animal husbandry. Secondary produce from the surplus fruit and vegetables such as jams; pickles and chutney are also made and then sold at a profit. The programme exposes the trained women to basic business success principles.

Apart from this, the programme also has the objective to provide food security and promote sustainable livelihoods amongst marginalised women through training and skills development in the areas of vegetable growing, food production and life skills.

According to BAT SA, the foundation was chosen due to the positive impact the Foundation has on its surrounding communities.

“We felt that the Growing the Future training programme was a perfect fit for us as it not only addresses the country’s agenda regarding food security, but also empowers women. Most of these women are from the rural areas and have come to the Western Cape in pursuit of job opportunities. It is envisaged that they will impart the skills acquired from this programme and go on to help empower their broader communities,” says Itumeleng Langeni, head of Corporate Communication at BAT South Africa.

Commenting on the new partnership, Grootbos Foundation Director, Sean Privet, said: “We are very grateful to BAT South Africa for supporting our foundation. Due to their support we have been able to acquire much needed additional specialist staff and are currently compiling a new and improved training programme for the women.”

BAT SA is one of South Africa’s Best Employers certified companies for 2012/13. The honour was given to the company as a result of its outstanding working conditions.

BAT SA corporate social investment policy focuses on four areas that they believe address South Africa’s key economic and social issues, namely sustainable agriculture, empowerment, civic life, and HIV/Aids. The motivation for focusing on these priority areas is to support sustainability, economic growth, skills development and education for the most vulnerable people of South Africa.

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The MOU which was signed by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Unilever CEO Paul Polman, supports Unilever’s goal to deliver on one of its commitment under its Sustainable Living Plan by helping more than one billion people take action to improve their health and well-being. The initiative also aim to decrease incidence in diarrhoea diseases, promote gender equality, increase school attendance, enhance productivity and well-being for all community members.

The project involves working with nearly 500,000 people in rural villages across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The African countries targeted are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda.

“The partnership will also focus on governments. Governments should integrate handwashing with soap into national health and education policy frameworks. Governments and aid donors should ensure adequate finance for hygiene facilities and water availabilities. Business must act too, ensuring their products are even more affordable, and varied so that handwashing with soap is done everywhere and by all. Public-private partnerships have role to play and can help governments harness the power of business for the benefit of their population’s health,” a statement released on the partnership said.

Unilever CEO Paul Polman, said: “The big issues the world is facing require new approaches, new business models and new partnerships. Responsible businesses must take a more active leadership role. The MOU with the Earth Institute partnering Lifebuoy with the Millennium Villages Project is one such example where working together will enhance our expertise of addressing hygiene in deep rural Africa and enable us to develop more effective solutions to reduce child mortality.”

“It is unacceptable that two million children die every year from infectious diseases when we have easy and cheap lifesaving solutions, such as handwashing with soap, readily available. Innovative partnerships between governments, civil society and business have a critical role to play in promoting better hygiene practices and in tackling the world’s deadliest diseases.”

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University accounted that “Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the two leading causes of under-5 deaths, accounting for around 30 percent of children’s deaths globally – more than two million lives lost each year. More than 80 percent of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Addressing these challenges through improved hygiene is a vital and effective step towards saving lives and achieving the global Millennium Development Goal to reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015.”

Consistent evidence shows that handwashing with soap at critical times – before eating or preparing food and after using the toilet – can reduce diarrhoeal risk by 45 percent and acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia, by 23 percent. Studies also reveal that primary school absenteeism due to diarrhoea and respiratory infections dropped between 20 percent and 50 percent as a result of better handwashing practices .

“We are looking forward to working with Unilever to ensure that straightforward solutions like handwashing reach the people that need them the most,” said Sachs who leads the Millennium Villages Project.

Millions of people around the world are thereby urged to pledge on this link to help Lifebuoy and its partners assist more children receive hygiene education through their dedicated handwashing behavior change programs.

Speaking on the UN’s post-2015 agenda, Polman said, “It will be important to ensure that hygiene takes its place alongside targets on water and sanitation. This partnership with Millennium Villages Project will provide further evidence to demonstrate to policymakers how hygiene public policy can be improved, and help bring to an end the scandal of children dying from preventable diseases.”

The Global Handwashing Day is celebrated on the 15^th of October in over 100 countries to create awareness on the importance of handwashing with soap as a lifesaving habit. It was founded by Unilever through its Lifebuoy brand in partnership with the Public Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) alongside UNICEF, P&G, USAID, the Work Bank Water and Sanitation Programme, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Academy for Educational Development.

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The cement king through his philanthropic foundation gave 150 million naira cash ($950,000) with food supplies and relief materials worth 50 million naira ($337,000) to the northern state badly ravaged by a flood that left many dead, thousands homeless and properties worth millions, destroyed.

Dangote also disclosed plans to enable 21,000 women of the flood victims get back on their feet through petty trading, stating 230 million naira ($1.36 million) had been set aside to support beneficiaries with 10,000 naira ($67) each.

The beneficiaries, who would be embursed next month, are to be selected a thousand each from different local governments of the state.

At a state ceremony in Lokoja, the state’s capital, Dangote said his donation was to complement the effort of the Kogi state government in giving respite to flood victims and resettling them as soon as possible.

“Obviously, the government alone cannot shoulder this onerous responsibility of bringing relief to the victims. The private sector and public-spirited individuals should join hands with the government to assist the victims of this national disaster that has ravaged about 21 states of the federation,” he said.

Governor Wada who with the philanthropist, visited victims at their temporary camp at St. Luke’s Primary School, Adankolo, stated that the donation was the largest the state had received for the victims.

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Calling on the global community to join the clean energy revolution, the new UN Initiative under the auspices of Kandeh Yumkella will bring governments, the private sector and civil society together in a meaningful partnership geared towards achieving universal energy access, improving energy efficiency and growing the share of renewable energy – all by 2030.

Underscoring the ambitious yet achievable initiative, Mr. Ban stressed that there is no better person with the requisite leadership skills needed to push the initiative forward than the 53 year old Yumkella who many UN analysts have often described as a rising star for the numerous leading roles he has played within the UN system and the global community. “Providing sustainable energy for all could be the biggest opportunity of the 21st century. It is the golden thread that connects economic growth, social equity, and a climate and environment that enables the world to thrive,” said Secretary General Ban.

Having served as Co-Chair of the High-level Group on Sustainable Energy for All, Chair of SG Ban’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) as well as his active participation as a member of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), participants at the event overwhelmingly noted that Dr. Yumkella has not only helped to set and coordinate the global development priorities of the United Nations but has played a leading international role in identifying the lack of access to energy as a crucial constraint for development efforts.

For his part, Dr. Yumkella registered his gratitude for the trust and confidence bestowed on him on the new appointment. “I am honored to serve the Secretary General and ready to take this path–breaking initiative to the next level. More than ever, the world needs to ensure that the benefits of modern energy are available to all and to ensure that energy is provided as cleanly and efficiently as possible. Energy is critical for human progress and for the developing world, energy poverty is devastating,” he said.

Pledging to work with all stakeholders “to achieve sustainable energy for all and drive real action on the ground – action that transforms lives, communities, economies and the environment,” the incoming Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) and CEO, noted that Sustainable Energy is a matter of equity and one of urgent practical importance. “We are all aware of the fundamental role that energy access plays as a driver for development, in delivering health, education, food security and economic growth. We need change, and we need it urgently. We can, and we must, give three billion people the chance to build more productive, healthier lives.”

Over the last five years and since the initiative’s official launch in New York in 2011, Dr. Yumkella has, in addition to his Director General responsibilities at UNIDO, advocated passionately with the global community to support Mr. Ban’s initiative on behalf of the world’s poorest.

His leadership and efforts have garnered support from every part of the world including the European Commission and the Clean Energy Ministerial to the African energy ministers and the Small Island Developing states. It has also attracted the voluntary participation of about 60 developing nations.

Moreover, his efforts also led Secretary General Ban to announce at the Rio+ 20 summit held in June that more than USD 50 billion that had been raised from investors and the private sector in support of the campaign’s interrelated and complementary goals of ensuring universal access to modern energy services, doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030.

But that is not all. Other highlights of his leadership include tens of billions already committed by various multi-lateral development banks in Asia, Europe and Latin America and the formation of public-private-partnerships on transport, energy efficiency, solar cooking, finance and energy access for the poor.

However, all of these achievements do not surprise those who know him from Sierra Leone and his colleagues in the global development community with whom he has worked over the last 20 years. Friends, school mates and colleagues describe Yumkella as a very humble man who strives each day to live diligently by the quote: “Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” By accepting to lead this new initiative from the ground up, Yumkella’s pioneering endeavors, love for confronting challenges and “the first” may have begun during his days at university.

During his undergraduate education at Njala University in Sierra Leone, he reportedly held the first position in his class for the entire four year maintaining a grade point average of 5.0 in his first year and never below 4.3 even with his active participation in student union politics and competed in the 400 and 800 meters races.

As a graduate student at the College of Agriculture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne, he was the first Assistant to the Dean of Minority Affairs. Upon graduation, he became the first African or Black faculty member at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University.

As the first Sub-Saharan African Director General of UNIDO since 2005, he has led the once moribund agency to global recognition and is the first Sierra Leonean to be Chief Executive of a UN Development Agency and member of the UN’s Chief Executive Board.

Venturing into the unknown to lead the new UN initiative, and charged with fulfilling its mandate including its planning and successful implementation, Yumkella will undoubtedly leave a trail for others to follow. The only problem, his shoes may be hard to fill given his history of successful trailblazing acts.

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