2022 Sustainable Business Report

70 | SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2022 KPI SUMMARY OUR MATERIAL TOPICS OUR BUSINESS OUR STAKEHOLDERS OUR HIGHLIGHTS • Accelerated Learning Programme benefitted over 25 271 learners. • 2 050 youth received digital skills training through the Wezesha initiative. • Supported 412 initiatives across 47 counties through the Ndoto Zetu Phase 3 initiative, benefiting over 1.2 million people. • Expanded our telemedicine initiative. ISSUES FOR SOCIETY • Ongoing negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. • Drought in certain parts of Kenya, rising cost of living. We have co-created several strategic programmes with various partners (SDG17) including maternal, neonatal and child health programmes (SDG3); as well as child and online safety (SDG3) and educational and training initiatives targeting all levels of society (SDGs 4, 8 and 10). SOCIETY UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO NEEDS Kenya’s country blueprint development programme, Vision 2030, aims to transform the country into an industrialised, middle-income country providing a high quality of life and a clean and secure environment for all its citizens. This vision underpins our work to transform lives. Our corporate social investment programmes aim to transform lives. We work to achieve this through our Safaricom and M-PESA Foundation programmes which are aligned with our priority SDGs and focused on key themes: health, education and economic empowerment. Our collaboration with various partners, including county and national government informs this work. We engage formally and informally with all levels of society, particularly the most marginalised, to understand and respond to their needs. Engagement also informs the Foundations’ ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of social impact initiatives, generally by using third-party evaluators. Gaps identified and key learnings are then used to improve on the design and implementation, as well as the scale and sustainability of subsequent initiatives. In broad terms, some of the lessons we have learnt include the need to bring other funding partners on board to scale initiatives; ensuring government’s ownership to promote sustainability and increasing investment in the Ndoto Zetu initiative which has proven to yield immediate, direct changes in people’s lives. Funds are disbursed according to the regions mapped in terms of Safaricom’s trading zones. Our employees play a key role in engaging with the communities to prioritise needs. They make recommendations related to each region’s community needs and to our strategic themes. They also act as change champions, monitoring the progress of the projects during their day-to-day interactions. Initiatives under these themes are set out on the following pages.