The media play an important role in society through providing a platform for discussion and debate. They are also an important stakeholder of ours as they provide us with a channel through which we can communicate with our other stakeholders, such as our customers.

Accordingly, we need to make sure that the relevant members of the media are presented with the right facts and information and that significant issues are identified and fully explained so that topics and events are reported in an accurate and balanced manner.
We maintain good working relationships with a wide variety of media representatives to ensure that our voice is also heard on pertinent issues and to help provide information and guidance topics that are related to our areas of expertise.

Safaricom is proud to be closely associated with Kenya’s first business journalism fellowship program at Strathmore Business School. As Kenya, and East Africa’s most successful company by many measures (turnover, profit, customer base, market capitalization), Safaricom is also arguably the most closely scrutinized company.

It’s business and social performance is of great interest to its large local customer and shareholder base, the government, and international portfolio investors, while the phenomenal success of M-PESA in Kenya attracts the interest of the technology and development community worldwide. Safaricom, therefore has a major interest in the quality of journalism in Kenya, and financial reporting in particular. In an age when many news organizations no longer have the resources to tackle complex, timeconsuming stories, the Safaricom Business Journalism Fellowship Program will enable journalists to develop the analytical skills needed not only to connect the dots across a wide range of complicated topics, but also to produce impactful journalism that will set them apart.

Safaricom decided to partner with the Strathmore Business School for this important project due to the fact that it has become a significant guiding force in our business community.

Through this program we hope to prepare journalists to perform a vital and challenging function in free societies: finding the truth in complicated situations, usually under a time constraint, and communicating it in a clear engaging fashion to the public.