Building mutually beneficial relationships with communities is a cornerstone of Mondi’s approach. In 2015, Mondi launched its Growing Responsibly model which provides a framework to demonstrate, monitor and improve the way sustainability is embedded across the business and throughout the value chain. Taking the lead from two major global development frameworks – the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals – Mondi identified 10 priority areas with clearly identified sustainability commitments, including relationships with communities, for 2020 and beyond.
Mondi is an international packaging and paper group. In South Africa, the business covers the entire value chain; from growing timber for pulp, to manufacturing uncoated and packaging paper. Mondi Group has over 10 operations across 32 countries, with a commitment to responsible business, compliance with global corporate governance standards and responding to local challenges. Mondi is not only committed to reducing the impacts of climate change, but also to developing communities living near its operations. As a testament to its social commitments, Mondi has invested over €46 million in local communities over the last five years, and five times that amount in regional economies, through direct taxes.
In South Africa, Mondi has an extensive footprint in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, managing 250 000 hectares of forestry plantations and employing around 4 700 contractors, 2 100 of which are women. While Mondi’s corporate social investment approach seeks to achieve sustainable development through health, education, infrastructure and enterprise development initiatives, supporting access to healthcare has consistently emerged as a priority.
Investing in a stable workforce
In 2008, as a result of extensive consultations with communities and stakeholders, Mondi initiated a mobile clinic programme in order to deliver comprehensive primary healthcare services to remote rural communities. A decade later, the programme has received more than 300 000 visits and has identified some valuable lessons on structuring partnerships and measuring impact.
In collaboration with key partners, there are now seven mobile clinics, delivering primary healthcare services to contractor employees and communities within the Mondi footprint. These mobiles venture out once a month, reaching 241 visiting points across 11 local municipalities. The impact of these services are felt across six districts: Harry Gwala, Umgungundlovu, Umzinyathi, Ugu, King Cetshwayo and Umkhanyakude. Mondi also reaches the Mkhondo Municipality within the Gert Sibande District, where the HIV infection rate among pregnant women is the highest in the country at 46%.
Health services rendered include maternal and postnatal care, HIV counselling and testing, management of TB, sexually transmitted diseases and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, epilepsy, mental health and asthma.
While the mobile clinics were primarily designed to target Mondi’s contractors, the number of community members who benefit from the service reveal an almost exponential impact. In 2016, there were 5 965 visits by contractor employees, while 74 744 visits by community members took place, bringing the total number of clinic visits by beneficiaries to 80 709, a 60% increase from 2015.
In 2017, 9 414 children under five years old were attended to by the mobile clinics, 1 800 people were tested for HIV, a further 2 832 were tested for tuberculosis (TB) and 2 649 received their antiretroviral (ARV) medication. This is significant in rural areas where fallout rates for TB and ARV medication are high due to the barrier of transport costs in reaching clinics.
Mobile clinic objectives
- Improve access to comprehensive primary healthcare services in difficult- to-reach communities, and for Mondi contractor employees
- Reduce the travel and financial burden associated with accessing healthcare in remote regions, and ultimately reduce contract workers’ absenteeism due to illness
- Facilitate HIV counselling and testing services for communities and contractor employees and refer HIV positive patients to the Department of Health
- Where possible, facilitate the provision of ARV treatment and chronic medication
- Promote behavioural change by providing health-related education and advice through a peer education programme.
Building partnerships
The Department of Health (DOH) recognises the value of mobile clinics in reaching remote communities and reducing the burden on its own limited resources that remain under pressure in rural communities.
Since healthcare is not Mondi’s core business, several partnership models have been tested, each with their own strengths and limitations.
Addressing social behaviour change
A vital link in the chain of reducing the burden of disease and illness in rural communities is providing education and counselling services that reinforce the treatment. The mobile clinics are supported by workplace and community-based peer educators, who disseminate health-related information to contractor employees and communities. Their role is to promote HIV counselling and testing and to support ARV distribution through awareness programmes.
Moving healthcare forward
Monitoring and evaluation of Mondi’s services have been diligently recorded since 2010, providing valuable data that informs resource allocation for the DOH and shows a meaningful return on investment for Mondi, due to decreased absenteeism, reduced mortality rates in Mkhondo, and an increased number of people being tested and receiving medication.
The DOH has also learnt from the programme, suggesting that the model provides a blueprint for scalability.
Bringing objectivity and perspective, Mondi has bravely participated in independent evaluation studies that provided valuable feedback on the efficacy of its partnerships. As a direct result, peer educators and non-profit partners will receive more rigorous training to ensure patients are managed with dignity and discretion.
For the forestry and agricultural sectors at large, Mondi’s programme of mobile clinics is a potentially scalable and replicable model for healthcare that exemplifies the positive impact public-private partnerships can have on arresting the scourge of disease currently facing remote and migratory communities.
Trialogue Business in Society Handbook, 2017
