Progress in Angola

NHO’s sister organisation the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Angola (CCIA) has embarked on a new path of transforming itself into a Federation. The Federation of Chambers and Industry of Angola will be modelled after the Confederation of Norwegian Entreprise (NHO).

NHO programme manager, Inger Østby, noted that this transformation of CCIA into a Federation comes after only a few years of cooperation between NHO and CCIA. The project had a modest start in 2006, and through the 3-4 years NHO has exposed its experiences with regard to the challenges of being represented in all regions of Norway.

Angola is a big country, similarly, Norway is very lengthy, the challenges of reaching out to NHO's member companies have had to be taken on. It is of immense importance for a business organisation to operate closely with its member companies outside the central region in order to induce economic growth in the provinces.  

The fact that CCIA is now creating a Federation of the Chambers in the 18 provinces of Angola is proof of the positive development its cooperation with NHO. This should be regarded as an important step towards sustainability in the joint efforts between the two sister organisations.  

The cooperation between Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) and Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Angola (CCIA) has made good progress during 2010. ILO Tools for improved service to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) were presented in April.

Already during this period specific participants were picked out to become trainers of the ILO tools in the near future. The tools will be further developed, while the trainers will receive additional training in November 2010 to ensure sustainability of this activity.

In September CCIA and NHO jointly organised two workshops in Saurimo, Lunda Sul:

1.             “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR)

2.            “Health Safety and Environment at the workplace” (HSE)

The participants came from CCIA’s Province Chambers, their member companies, Ministry of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security (MAPESS) and CCIA in Luanda. NHO provided a resource person, an expert on CSR, Dr. Erik Lundeby. Local resource persons were recruited from two Norwegian companies operating in Angola: DNV and FMC Technologies. 

The workshops were follow-ups of initial CSR- and MSE-seminars which were organized in October 2009 to introduce the two topic areas to Angolan parties. In September 2010, the participants were presented with detailed ways of working with CSR and HSE in their companies. The ILO tools were presented, and the participants had the opportunity to start working with them in the workshops.

It is important to note that from October 2009 to September 2010, there has been a positive and remarkable change in the attitude of Angolan authorities with regard to speaking much more openly about corporate social responsibility (CSR)  which includes the item “fighting corruption.”

The participants reported that the content and administration of the seminars had fulfilled their expectations. All the resource persons were well qualified, pointed and result oriented in their presentations. In addition the workshops were open for dialogue, opinions and clarifications all throughout the sessions. This strengthened the usefulness of the content of the workshops in terms of practical work in the Chambers and the companies. Assistance from NHO and its member companies made the workshops possible and extended the much needed status.

These workshops were “training of trainers” for CSR and HSE. It is now up to the trainers to put into practice what has been learnt. CCIA has taken the responsibility of following-up and  assisting in organizing local programmes. CCIA will contact DNV, FMC and MAPESS for assistance, if the need arises. The purpose is to educate good trainers into consultants who can render marketable services. This will ensure the long term sustainability of the efforts made so far by NHO and CCIA.