CSR: How Accenture is working with partners in nation building
Many organisations are embarking on amazing projects under their CSR initiatives to improve the lots of Nigerians. Daniel Obi writes on Accenture Nigeria projects which is working with partners for nation building.
Over time, relationship between the gown and the town in Nigeria has strained. It has become a concern that conventional education now exists in isolation. This has raised the quest for teaching of saleable and entrepreneurial skills in tertiary schools. School system ordinarily should equip all students for appropriate skills and competencies for their economic well-being and for nation development.
Lack of these entrepreneurial skills or inability to apply them where the skills exist has assisted to jack-up the unemployment rate, currently standing at about 20 per cent of Nigeria’s 170 million population. Unemployment is high among the youth (under 35 years) who account for about 70 per cent of the population.
It was this concern of high unemployment and lack of entrepreneurial skills among Nigerians with their attendant societal consequences that spurred Accenture Nigeria, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company to come up with Skill-to-Succeed initiative. The initiative is about helping to improve the readiness of individuals to either get a job or improve their businesses. It is simply about employability and entrepreneurship, bridging the gap between gown, town and reducing unemployment rate.
“For us, Skill-to-Succeed is our own way of working with non-commercial clients and giving back to society. In the last 8 years, we have been able to help 500,000 Nigerians who have been impacted by various skills under the initiative”, Niyi Yusuf, Accenture country managing director told BusinessDay recently.
Accenture with its partners executes the initiative in three approaches – by financial grants, employees volunteering their time, and by pro-bono consulting.
According to Niyi who declined to comment on Accenture’s total financial commitment in the last five years, said some of the 500,000 empowered entrepreneurs have grown and are even providing services to Accenture. He simply said that Accenture has so far committed over 10,000 hours free to empowering Nigerians.
“The choice of our local partners such as Fate Foundation, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI and LEAP Africa is deliberate as we work with partners that are reputable and credible and have structures in place”. On monitoring of the trained entrepreneurs, he said the partners set up monitoring and evaluation team that does constant monitoring of the entrepreneurs during the programme and after the programme. “We get such reports on annual basis on who is doing well and challenges”.
These non-commercial partners, Niyi said either mentor, empower small businesses on leadership or financial literacy. “We work with Junior Achievement of Nigeria which is an international NGO and its focus is on financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship. This is one way through Accenture is impacting youths in school and those out of school.
“We train them beyond just vocational skills but also financial literacy skills, how to develop and business plan, how to keep records and accounts to ensure their businesses will thrive. This is to ensure that the youth leave the streets and begin to run their businesses.
“Overall in the last 5 years, we have spent more than 10,000 hours free supporting these various not-for profit and using them to impact Nigerians and small business. Given that Accenture focuses on large corporates, but this is our way of giving back to the society and making the country a better place”, Niyi who described Accenture CSR as corporate citizenship said.
In a move to expand the programme and impact more Nigerians, Accenture last two years brought into Nigeria the Accenture Development Partnership, ADP a way of working with multilateral donors to make significant impact.
The international NGOs include Save the Children, Society for family health, Sight Savers. Dangote Foundation, Danjuma Foundation, MTN Foundation. “At the same time Accenture provides services for the private sector organisations that fall within the development sector, besides the multilateral and bi-lateral organisations, like DFID, as USAID”, Osato Noah, who is ADP lead in Accenture said.
Osato further said that Accenture’s vision is to leverage innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. The ADP model brings this to life. According to him ADP leverages the capability, resources and tools in Accenture.
Under ADP, according to Osato, Accenture focuses on areas such as agriculture, energy, livelihood, humanitarian services. “We offer almost all the services Accenture offers such as digital, technology, strategy and partnership. We have supported quite a number of initiatives in these areas. We have worked with a leading global philanthropy to digitise the process for a social investment programme which is aimed at enhancing financial services, availing financial services to the poor.
“The financial exclusion in Nigeria is about 42 per cent. The plan is by 2020 and with the support of the digitisation of this progarmme we will half that number through beneficiaries of this initiative of about 10million which cut across women, youth and urban and rural poor
“We have also supported a Pan African trade finance organisation to set up a medical facility that focuses on the treatment and management of non-communicable diseases. Today, Nigeria spends over $1 billion on medical tourism annually. This facility when established will definitely help us contain capital flight in search of medical care”.
Osato also said that with ADP partnership, Accenture has worked with a Nigerian state to develop an ICT cluster which aimed at enhancing the economic potential of the state by helping to create an enabling environment for start-up in technology and innovation such that they will be able to contribute significantly in unleashing the economic potentials of the state.
On how the projects are selected, he said the projects come from organisations that are working in some communities. When they see challenges they discuss it and raise proposal. Such projects are a multi-stakeholder involvement; it can be community or government, multilateral donor and Accenture. The kind of stakeholder will vary based on the particular issue of opportunity that is addressed.
Nation building requires strong private sector participation and that is why it is laudable that Accenture is making such contributions under its corporate citizenship working quietly with partners for this course.