As a student, you will have a comprehensive understanding of the critical role that community engagement and social impact management play in ensuring the long-term sustainability of businesses.  

Through the course, you will develop your knowledge and appreciation of key concepts and practical tools to effectively manage social performance, engage meaningfully with communities and key stakeholders, manage social impacts and risks, ensure socio-economic benefit delivery and implement monitoring and evaluation best practices in complex environments. 

You will gain insights into international best practices through an environmental and social governance (ESG) lens. The course emphasises the importance of understanding the internal and external systems’ impact and challenges of this practice area in organisations and within local operating contexts, as well as the well-being and professional development of social practitioners.  

By the end of the course, you should have a solid grounding in key principles and practices, enabling you to appreciate the value of stakeholder engagement and effectively manage social impacts and risks. Overall, the course aims to empower you to contribute to sustainable and socially responsible business practices in your respective roles and industries.

What you will walk away with: 

• Develop and apply practical tools to effectively manage social performance and engage meaningfully with communities and key project stakeholders in complex environments.
• Develop effective management interventions for assessing social impacts and risks.  
• Analyse and apply various approaches to manage and maximise the positive impact of socio-economic benefit delivery for communities. 
• Develop and apply monitoring and evaluation best practices in complex environments. 
• Critically assess international environmental and social governance (ESG) best practice and its relation to community engagement and social impact leadership.  
• Analyse the real-world social impacts linked to a large project, both internally and externally, and develop appropriate recommendations and management responses. 

Minimum Requirements:

• National Senior Certificate, NQF 4 or equivalent 
• English proficiency

Who should apply:

• Entry to mid-level professionals

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2. Professional Practice in Community Investment and Development

Course Delivery: In-person (Cape Town)

Duration: 5 days, full-time

Dates: 6 – 10 October 2025

Course Fee: R37200

Application deadline: Monday, 8 September 2025

Application link: https://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/executive-education/community-investment-development/

Course Overview:

This course provides students with a solid grounding in the dynamics of private sector-led community social investments and economic development (CoSI and ED) within the natural resource sector.

By exploring fundamental concepts, paradigms, models and approaches, you will gain the essential knowledge and skills for designing and implementing impactful CoSI and ED programmes. Utilising a mixed-methods approach of theory and hands-on learning, you will develop practical strategies to foster sustainable development and positive change in communities affected by natural resource projects.

What you will walk away with: 

• Understanding private sector-led Community Social Investment and Economic Development.
• Analysing paradigms and complexities impacting community social investments and economic development delivery. 
• Utilising various models and approaches to community social investments and economic development within natural resource projects, including local content, regional economic development, and shared infrastructure.
• Managing processes, including planning, designing, implementing, and monitoring various models and approaches to community social investments and economic development.
• Engaging and collaborating effectively, using participatory approaches and agreement-making, with internal and external community social investment and economic development programme stakeholders and partners.
• Evaluating and adapting community social investment and economic development interventions to achieve sustainable project outcomes.

Minimum Requirements:

• National Senior Certificate, NQF 4 or equivalent 
• English proficiency

Who should apply:

• Practitioner to executive-level professionals

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3. Company-Community Conflict Management

Course Delivery: In-person (Johannesburg)

Duration: 3 days, full-time

Dates: 3 – 5 November 2025

Course Fee: R25000

Application deadline: Tuesday, 7 October 2025

Application link: https://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/executive-education/company-community-conflict-management

Course Overview:

The fundamental purpose of this course is to help build more conflict-sensitive individuals and organisations, in particular those that are working and operating in highly complex company-community contexts.

To meet this purpose, you are taken on an applied learning journey, using your real-life conflict experiences, deepening your understanding of the nature of conflict, its causes and drivers, and how best to prevent and manage conflict as part of the way your organisation makes decisions and manages its impacts and risks.

What you will walk away with:

• Understand what conflict is and what causes it within the organisation’s context.
• Develop a conflict analysis of the organisation’s operational context.
• Apply an impact and risk lens to understand and respond to conflict.
• Understand the key tasks and tools in a conflict management process, including how to deploy them.
• How to be conflict-sensitive across operational contexts and business.
• The link between conflict and trauma, and applying a trauma lens to understand and respond to conflict.
• Anticipate conflict and advise on effectively managing conflict.
• Apply key conflict de-escalation skills.
• How to incorporate conflict considerations into decision-making and organisational management systems.
• Develop a real-life analysis of conflict within operational contexts, including recommendations for effective and ongoing management of conflict for presentation to internal leadership.
• Transform the relationship with conflict, including how to navigate conflict situations with greater sensitivity for improved business and community outcomes.

Minimum Requirements:

• National Senior Certificate, NQF 4 or equivalent 
• English proficiency

Who should apply:

• Practitioner to executive-level professionals

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