Education and communication program for socialresponsibility (PROECOS): impact evaluation

摘要

This paper presents the evaluation of PROECOS from 2004 to 2007.PROECOS is a partnership program between the mining company SamarcoMineracao S.A. and the NGO GAIA (Interdisciplinary Learning ApplicationGroup). PROECOS takes place in 16 cities in the states of Espirito Santo andMinas Gerais, Southeast Brazil. It aims at promoting local sustainabledevelopment in the company influence area, as well as reinforcing Samarco'simage as a socially responsible company. This impact evaluation wasconducted through structured interviews with 80.2% of the participants inprofessional qualification courses and with 48.9% of the participants in projectelaboration training. The program has offered professional developmentcourses to 278 community members to improve their ongoing agriculturalactivities or to generate new income alternatives. PROECOS has capacitated194 people to elaborate, fundraise and manage socio-environmental projects.In addition, they have elaborated 53 projects according to their needs,benefiting over 15.000 people directly or indirectly. The Community projectsare aimed mostly at education (30%), environment (20%), income generation(18%), health (16%) and culture (16%). A network based on e-group for thepromotion of sustainable development was also established. Professionalcourses to improve activities already developed by the community, such ascoffee plantation and processing, indicated the most significant results onincome generation (50% and 49% of the respondents) while horticulture andfishery presented the lowest result (0%). Similarly, the greatest observedimpacts fomented by the communities' socio-environmental projects was theincrease in the number of people benefited by the already existing institutions(41.7% of the respondents) and the legal organization of those institutions(8.3%). We consider that the program as a whole would benefit from thecreation of a network of institutions to support the communities' projects,hence further strengthening the public sector, company and civil sector (NGO)partnership. PROECOS also had positive effects on the company image andrelationship management with those communities. The impact evaluationdemonstrated to be an important tool for company managers, whose goal is toimprove efficiency and efficacy in corporate social responsibility programs.