The Group President and CEO has directed that all operations are to establish Foundations that are funded by up to 1% of profit after tax (PAT). MTN Foundations projects are aimed at establishing sustainable initiatives that promote partnerships with our communities.

We channel our investment toward developmental priorities in the countries in which we operate. Foundations programme spend for 2011 is represented in the graphs below. The decline in the amount spent on Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programmes for 2011 compared to 2010 is as a result of our projects running over multiple reporting periods; payments are effected once certain milestones are achieved, and only then can we report budget spending. In addition, some of our operations experienced socio-political unrest during the reporting year, which delayed the progress of our projects.

During 2011, we developed a new Group-wide strategy for community engagement, informed by our ICT business strategy and national development agendas. The strategy also takes into account the need to standardise governance and reporting, and measure and evaluate the impact of our foundations. The aim of this standardisation is to improve efficiency and sharing of knowledge and best practices.

We hope to finalise and roll out the Group CSI strategy starting in 2012. We intend to focus 80% of our efforts on education as a key focus area for our CSI spend over a period of years, while still continuing to support requirements for health and national priority initiatives. The focus in 2012 is on rolling out our newly developed CSI strategy.