El Cerrejon, the world’s biggest opencast coalmine, invited FUNDES to start working on a new Shared Value Creation Programme in La Guajira region (Colombia).
The aim of this programme is to promote entrepreneurship in communities that are suffering resettlement due to mining development in La Guajira region and to demonstrate that Responsible Mining is possible.
During the next three or four years, the Shared Value Creation Programme is expected to benefit five communities in Colombia by generating sustainable incomes for families and energizing local economy.
The Project
FUNDES, in partnership with El Cerrejon coalmine, will actively drive to the members of these communities to create new business opportunities. The resettlement process should ensure communities’ social network preservation, families’ socio-economic conditions restoration and their life-quality improvement.
La Guajira
The Department of La Guajira in Colombia is a land of contrasts. It has very important natural resource availability, with a rich culture and a privileged geographical location in relation to other departments in the country.
According to these factors, it would seem that La Guajira Department is able to achieve high economic, social and human rates.
However, La Guajira’s inhabitants show significant deficiencies in the level of income, in the access to basic public services like water and sanitation, and in other development factors such as infant mortality.
As reported by the latest surveys, La Guajira is the Colombia’s department with the highest rate of extreme poverty, which reached 37.4 percent, and third in terms of poverty which reached 64 percent.
Posted by
Maialen Echevarria
Secretariat
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Associated Partner:
Fundes International