UNISA School of Business Leadership Clinic

UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership (GSBL) is a fully recognised college within UNISA. It recognises Community Engagement (CE) as one of the three founding principles alongside teaching, learning and research. Engaged teaching and research are recognised as primary expressions of CE and forms of scholarship. The GSBL, through the newly established Business Leadership Clinic, will house projects of the college which are aligned to the global development instruments that include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 and the current African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). The Business Leadership Clinic responds to the call to localize the SDGs to make positive transformational impact in societies through engaged scholarship. In terms of alignment with the SDGs, the clinic focusses on the following; quality education, reduction of inequalities, reduction of poverty, and sustainable smart communities. Alignment with the SDGs finds expression in encouraging economic transformation by improving access to information to enable small medium and micro, enterprises to access different markets. Community Engagement projects through the Business Clinic, make it possible for engaged scholarship to be realised. This is to ensure that curricula for postgraduate programmes at the SBL are located within issues and socio-economic challenges faced by our students and participants. Not only will this contribute towards the entrepreneurial skills and graduate attributes needed to transform society but will also provide communities with a platform to harness practical transferable skills. BLC has three Pillars, the first pillar is the clinic which is linked to the community engagement and is free, the second pillar is the ecommerce platform that will be used as a linking vehicle to other system and for expanding market access for micro enterprises and the third Pillar is the rural urban linkage where cooperatives will be linked to the retail market and encouraged to subcontract as suppliers. The platform will enable the farming cooperatives to live stream their products to all the customers, who will in turn market the platform themselves and the products in the platform.