Lundin for Africa (LFA) is the philanthropic arm of the Lundin Group of Companies. LFA was founded in 2006 by the Lundin family, with a view to contributing toward improvements in the lives of Africa's most impoverished and vulnerable populations. The Lundins are mining and oil and gas entrepreneurs who have enjoyed considerable success in Africa and have recognized the need to ensure that benefits received from the resource sector are shared with local communities. Working together with Canadian and international NGOs, LFA supports participatory grassroots initiatives that encourage sustainable community development.

In July, 2007 LFA pledged $100 million to the Clinton Foundation's recently announced Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative (CGSGI). As a direct result, LFA is currently expanding its project pipeline with a strong focus on multi-year, vertically integrated income-generation initiatives aimed at unlocking Africa's vast entrepreneurial potential. LFA also contributes to health-and-water-related initiatives that address basic human needs and create enabling conditions for sustainable livelihoods.

While our work and resources are currently focused on supporting six countries (Sudan, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Zambia, Ghana, and Mauritania), we continue to invite proposals and explore micro-philanthropy opportunities (up to $50,000) across the continent. To date, we have approved 23 projects in nine countries.

LUNDIN FOR AFRICA HAS FOUR PRIMARY FOCUSES:

Improved Food Security and Sustainable Livelihoods

Three quarters of the world's "bottom billion" live in rural areas and one-in-three Africans remains undernourished. They are landless people or farmers whose plots are too small to provide for their needs. They frequently lack access to land, water, financial resources and agricultural technologies and services needed to farm productively. They also lack access to markets and opportunities for income generation. Above all, they lack the organizational power and influence required to advocate for their own needs and take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Historical evidence shows that it is agricultural growth, through its leverage effects on the rest of the economy, that typically enables poor countries, poor regions, and ultimately poor households, to take initial steps toward improved productivity and incomes. The importance of agriculture for poverty reduction goes well beyond its direct impact on rural incomes; agricultural growth, particularly through increased productivity, also reduces poverty by stabilizing and lowering food prices, increasing employment for the rural poor, and increasing the demand for non-farm goods and services.

Technical and Vocational Training

While economic growth rates in Africa have improved dramatically in concert with sustained increases in commodity prices, the benefits of such growth have generally not been commuted to improved social development or reduced vulnerability among marginalized groups. Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) can, in our view, play a catalytic role in providing such groups with basic literacy and numeracy training alongside specialized skills linked directly to employment opportunities. With this in mind, Lundin for Africa is currently developing TVET projects in Mauritania, Zambia and the DR Congo.

Financial Services for the Poor

Among the poorest segments of Africa's population, less than ten percent have access to formal financial services. Access to such services both reduces the vulnerability of impoverished families to setbacks and opens opportunities to increase income. With a view to supporting the development of innovative credit, savings, and insurance products to under-served rural and peri-urban populations, LFA supports the capitalization of micro-finance and insurance facilities, village savings and loans associations, and technical assistance in credit and portfolio management.

Capital Markets Facilities

While repayment rates with micro-credit are often high and the result is often improved income and food security for the borrowers and their families, very few of these entrepreneurs hire staff or see their organizations grow beyond family and into formal economic activity. In many African countries, the result has been a private sector dominated by spurring wealth and employment creation. Targeted capital market facilities offering risk capital, alongside technical and management assistance, represent an opportunity to address poverty through the empowerment of local entrepreneurs.

The Lundin for Africa Foundation is a Canadian registered charity and has a more limited mandate than Lundin for Africa Society. The Lundin for Africa Foundation only grants to other Canadian registered charities (or "qualifies donees") as that term as defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The Lundin for Africa Society is a Canadian not-for-profit organization that funds projects worldwide, with the goal of implementing sustainable community development programs in Africa.