CONCLUDING REMARKS

Our focus on the customer remains a key priority. We have restructured the business to make it more customercentric, which turned around our growth in the second half of the year.

Despite 2019 being a challenging year, we remained true to our purpose of transforming lives, maintaining our excellent track record on reducing inequalities.

Although there is much to be done, we are working towards achieving our target of a 50/50 gender split at senior management level by 2021, and we have begun conducting research into gender pay differentials. In the wider society, we are an equal-opportunities customer, support women-led businesses, as well as the work of differently-abled people, and the youth.

We continue to reduce inequalities and contribute to the economy by creating jobs, providing economic opportunities for all Kenyans through our products and services, and stimulating the wider ecosystem.

Our shared value partnerships reinforce our purposedriven approach to business and our commitment to transforming lives. Stakeholder engagement has enabled us to lead by example in areas such as social justice, sustainability, environmental responsibility and ethical business, and address inequalities in our supply chain.

In the near future, we will continue to focus on becoming the premier digital company in Kenya, integrating shared value across the business, building our customers’ trust in Safaricom, and being responsible stewards of the planet. All of this will be done in furtherance of our purpose: to transform lives.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to read this report. We welcome any comments, queries or suggestions you have regarding this report, which can be shared with the team via email to sustainability@safaricom.co.ke.

On 24 and 25 May, 2019, we hosted the Africa Shared Value Summit, where CEO Bob Collymore gave the keynote speech focusing on reducing inequalities – the theme for this year’s report. We have published the full speech in his memory and as a reflection of his commitment to reducing inequalities.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

One of the things that I like about the area we are in right now is that you can enjoy some of the most panoramic views of Nairobi from vantage points of the gleaming buildings that have been built in the Upper Hill and its surroundings.

Upper Hill is actually billed by some as Nairobi’s new commercial district. The view speaks of a vibrant business sector abuzz with opportunity.

But yet Nairobi, and many of the cities in which we live, have another side to them, a side that we all probably know.

I am told that there are 14 countries represented here, so for those delegates not from Kenya, I will explain that just about a 10 minute drive away will get you to the Southern bypass.

These gleaming buildings pale into the distance and right in front of you, adjacent to the bypass, is the sprawling Kibera settlement: rows of tightly squeezed, tin-roofed shacks that represent the reality in which millions of Nairobians live.

That picture from the southern bypass of Nairobi also demonstrates graphically the inequality that exists in the city and, sadly, throughout our nation, our continent and our globe.

According to Oxfam, the richest 10 per cent of people in Kenya earn, on average, 23 times more than the poorest 10 per cent.

What is even more distressing from the annual Oxfam study is that a girl from a poor family in Kenya has a one in 250 chance of continuing her studies beyond secondary school.

The picture is almost the same across the continent.

The latest edition of Time magazine paints a picture of inequality in South Africa that should attract everyone’s attention.

Time reports that the World Bank last year deemed South Africa the world’s most unequal society, estimating that the top 10 per cent owned 70 per cent of the nation’s assets in 2015.

The Time story further tells us that the societal split is still largely along racial lines; the bottom 60 per cent, is largely composed of black, mixed-race and Asian people descended from an era of slavery and colonial rule. This bottom 60 per cent controls only seven per cent of the country’s net wealth and half the South African population live on less than five US dollars a day.

The inequality problem we face today is not only limited to Africa. As a matter of fact, it is the norm across the global arena.

I recently came back from Seattle in Washington State. To quickly bring this to perspective, Washington State plays home to the headquarters of Microsoft and Starbucks, as well as laying claim to being the founding home of Boeing, the largest private employer in the State.

The Washington state tax system has the dubious distinction – according to some analysts – of being the most regressive tax regime in America.

Reports compiled by independent analysts show that poor residents in that state pay 16.8 per cent of family income in state and local taxes, while the wealthiest one per cent pay only 2.4 per cent.

The same situation plays out in San Francisco, where there is immense income per capita, but it is virtually impossible to live there as it is so expensive.

These statistics, whether describing Nairobi, Johannesburg or Seattle, are pointing to a grim and growing reality: that the number of economically disenfranchised people is growing rapidly right around the world.

And yes, this worsening state of affairs – the growing divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ – is happening in many of the areas where our businesses are thriving and where we live.

The reality is that our global economy is broken.

Hundreds of millions of people live in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top. Many reports show that there are more billionaires than ever before, and their fortunes have grown to record levels. Meanwhile, the world’s poorest are getting poorer.

This state of affairs is not sustainable.

Over the long-term, business cannot succeed where society is failing, and the reality is that the existing models of business are not generating enough value to contribute to societal good.

As our African economies focus on their growth trajectory — from lower to middle-income countries — the question is whether our nations should pursue GDP-driven economic growth or growth that aims to bridge these inequalities.

We may ask ourselves why this matters to business.

Now, more than ever, there is a clear call to action to business that the business of business can no longer be just business.

The Sustainable Development Goals, the call for more private sector innovation and the call for businesses to develop products and services that address societal needs has been a constant topic in business leadership discussions.

You will hear more from Mark Kramer and other speakers through the two days of this Summit about the changing role of business and business leadership.

Issues such as climate change, inequalities and rights are increasingly becoming fundamental issues that we will have to tackle as the private sector if we are to succeed.

The truth is, no one sector – public, private or NGO – has the capacity to address the fundamental business and social challenges that we face today.

And that is why collaborative and inclusive approaches to business and cross-sectoral partnerships are critical.

But this must be looked at through a business lens for it to make sense over the long term.

Increased inequalities lead to socio-political ills, such as increased disaffection, disengagement, migration, sectionalism, clanism, tribalism and xenophobia.

If not addressed, inequalities will ultimately create a political and business landscape that will be difficult to reverse – we see this in the U.S. and with Brexit.

Inequalities drive people to engagement in nefarious activities, such as trafficking and slavery.

The BBC reported not too long ago that there are about 45 million people living in slavery-type situations in the world today, which is many more than at the time slavery was abolished.

Faced with this global challenge of inequality, what should businesses do?

I wish to propose four approaches;

Firstly, we must adopt inclusive business approaches. Let’s seriously think about how to create employment for the youth, how we can do business more with women-led firms and the SME sector.

Secondly, we must address corruption. Corruption is a challenge in our country, on the continent and globally. It is often executed with the concurrence of the private sector. We are the other side of the coin. This scourge which causes a significant hemorrhage to the economy, drives inefficiencies, drives up prices, widens the inequality gulf and deprives government of revenue that should be used to deliver services.

Thirdly, we must be responsible and transparent taxpayers. We cannot avoid or evade taxes and then take the high road of criticising corrupt or poor government services. Let’s do our part and then, if need be, shout it from the rooftops that we paid our taxes if, feasibly, that might drive transparency.

Fourthly, we must tackle inequalities in the workplace. We also need to self-examine by asking pertinent business questions like: how we are performing on gender pay gaps or gaps between executive salaries and median salaries, especially now, with more transparency around wealth declaration.

Indeed, no one sector can do this alone. But we must commit to do our part.

The public sector needs to set the enabling environment, while those of us in the private sector need to drive delivery of products and services that will transform society for the better.

Civil society should provide the links to community and support accountability throughout.

When we bring all these players together, you create what I like to call Constructive Value – which suggests that when you add one plus one you get something that is greater than two.

The only way to achieve this is by partnering together across sectors and sometimes even across platforms.

What are we at Safaricom doing about all this?

In 2016, we started the process of integrating nine of the 17 SDGs into our core business strategy.

We did this because we believe that the SDGs provide the opportunity to really engage in purpose-driven business, a business that is both sustainable and inclusive.

We asked ourselves: what business could we do in the SDGs areas that would help us drive inclusive growth?

Our nine priority goals are the goals related to health; education; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; innovation and infrastructure; reducing inequalities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; peace and justice and partnerships.

We have since registered significant impact and transformation through our products in health, education, agriculture; our advocacy and partnership efforts in anticorruption; our ambitious target of being a Net-Zero Carbon Emitting Company by 2050; and our focus on building an inclusive supply chain.

As I conclude, Mark Kramer will talk about shared value – but unless we can address the context within which businesses operate today, it will be an uphill task to deliver Sustainable Shared Value.

We must all re-think our business models and strategies and see how to address the growing inequalities.

I look forward to hearing about how we can create Constructive Value across sectors that are very important for our continent – health, agriculture, energy, manufacturing – with a view to ensuring that we can drive inclusive growth – growth that bridges the gaps and helps bring down the walls that divide our populations.

I thank you for your kind attention.