Safaricom - 2020 Sustainable Business Report

67 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS OUR STAKEHOLDERS CONCLUDING REMARKS 2019 Africa Shared Value Summit As part of our commitment to shared value as a way of doing business, we partnered with the Shared Value Africa Initiative (SVAI) to host the 2019 Africa Shared Value Summit on 23 and 24 May 2019. The summit attracted over 300 business leaders, media personalities and other delegates from across the continent. The summit featured various talks by speakers from sectors such as mining, oil and gas, and start-ups from across the continent. We also hosted a group of 50 Kenyan CEOs at a lunch led by our late CEO, Bob Collymore, and Prof. Mark Krammer to discuss ways of enhancing inclusive business and shared value practices in Africa. “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 Global 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,” our late CEO, Bob Collymore, addressing delegates at the opening of the Africa Shared Value Summit in Nairobi. Since the Summit, we have joined the SVAI as a member and will continue to champion and advocate for shared value as a growth strategy for business in Kenya. B-Team Building on the launch of the Africa regional team in March of 2018, we continued to mobilise business leadership in East Africa during the year, with a focus on advancing open government and responsibility in tax, protecting civic rights, unlocking capital for green business and creating leadership opportunities for women and youth in East Africa. We held civic rights and tax dialogues at the Mo Ibrahim Governance weekend in April 2019, building upon a series of dialogues that we held in partnership with OXFAM, GSMA and other civil society partners in Kenya and Rwanda in 2018. Working with the regional members and Safaricom, we have helped raise the standards of corporate tax practice in East Africa and are already seeing a shift in national and regional discourses on the issue. MyLittleBigThing SDGs Innovation Challenge We have partnered with MK Africa for the MyLittleBigThing SDGs Innovation challenge since 2017. The challenge is an innovation contest among university and college students, aimed at driving awareness and action on SDGs by developing solutions to the challenges highlighted by the goals. During the year, we invited entries for innovative solutions to address challenges facing Kenyans as described in the first five SDGs (1-5). The top three ideas win an all expenses trip to attend a week-long sustainability practitioners programme hosted by the University of Cambridge in South Africa.