Equity Bank Kenya has been closely engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives since its launch in 1984. The award for Africa’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year is recognition of its position as a leader in the field.
The Nairobi-based lender describes its mission as a simple one: to empower its clients and stakeholders both socially and economically. It says it was the social aspect of this mission statement that saw it establish the Equity Group Foundation (EGF) back in 2008, with a mandate to create “shared value” for the most vulnerable citizens.
All the bank’s extensive CSR-related initiatives are channelled through the foundation’s six pillars: education and leadership development; food and agriculture; health; enterprise development and financial inclusion; social protection and energy; environment and climate change.
First and foremost is education. The point of this pillar is to “develop and inspire a generation of young leaders” able to generate the kind of social change and economic growth the country – and the continent – clearly need.
In its 12 years of operation, the foundation was chosen by Kenya’s government to oversee Elimu, a scholarship programme supported by the World Bank that supports 18,000 secondary school students in 125 counties and cities. The long-running initiative, which includes mentorship and psychosocial support, has a 97% completion rate, with 83% of students going on to attend university.
“The pandemic has challenged our global existence and ravaged our economies,” says James Mwangi, group managing director and chief executive of Equity Group Holdings. “Driven by our purpose-led social impact arm, Equity Group Foundation, we continue to invest in building back better to ensure that the people, businesses and communities that we serve have a fighting chance to retool and repurpose post-pandemic.”
Health is another pillar. In broad terms, EGF’s Afia programme aims to improve the health of Kenya’s citizens by providing them with access to quality affordable healthcare. More specifically, the point is to boost health literacy – particularly among the young – and to encourage people to take out private health insurance. More than 700,000 patients have visited out-patient clinics under the programme, including 396,000 in 2021 alone.
Equity Bank Kenya’s charitable foundation also collaborates with external partners to train healthcare entrepreneurs; equipping them with business skills to set up medical facilities in isolated or deprived areas.
From the start, a key focus of the bank was to support micro and small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Its focus on helping young firms with financial and non-financial support continues unabated. Under its Entrepreneurship programme, it has channelled funding and provided advice and mentorship to well over 300,000 MSMEs and SMEs.
We continue to invest in building back better to ensure that the people, businesses and communities that we serve have a fighting chance to retool and repurpose post-pandemic
James Mwangi
And under the aegis of Young Africa Works Kenya, a five-year programme created in collaboration with the government and the Mastercard Foundation, it helps smaller domestic firms to access finance and sharpen their business models. So far, the initiative has helped to disburse loans worth $1.4 billion to around 200,000 MSMEs.
This support is desperately needed. Kenya has a vibrant entrepreneurial culture – it is the birthplace of mobile phone-based money transfer service M-Pesa. But close to half a million small businesses fail each year, the bank reckons, for many reasons: among them, a scarcity of financial support and a lack of business acumen.
Equity Bank Kenya’s philanthropic arm has been busy elsewhere. Since its inception, it has supported 2.3 million small-scale farmers and 133,000 medium-sized farms and agri-businesses. As of the end of 2021, it had distributed 330,000 renewable energy products – including solar panels – to more than one million households.
Inclusion is another topic close to its heart. It delivers financial services to 3.5 million marginalized and vulnerable families across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, via branches, agents, merchants and ATMs.
