KENYA – Equity Group Plc intensified its ‘shared prosperity’ business model in the first half of 2021 by investing US$ 496 million in social impact projects through Equity Group Foundation.
The projects are anchored around the Foundation’s key pillars, namely: health, energy and environment, food and agriculture, enterprise development and financial inclusion, education and leadership development, and social protection.
Equity Group Managing Director and CEO Dr. James Mwangi believes the Group’s principle of putting people before profits has greatly contributed to the Group’s impressive performance in the just-released half-year financial results.
“We recognize that beyond a regulator license we also get a license from our host communities and we have continued to treat them as significant stakeholders and invest in them through our shared prosperity program,” said Dr. Mwangi
In the health sector, the Group rolled out a massive Covid-19 program of protecting frontline health workers in 56 county and national referral hospitals and 60 faith-based hospitals through an elaborate initiative to provide Personal Protective Personal Equipment (PPE).
This support, done in collaboration and partnership with the Kenya Covid-19 Fund Board, will go on for a period of 3 years for County and National Referral hospitals and will carry on for a period of 18 months for the faith-based hospitals that are designated Covid-19 management facilities.
The Group has also scaled its Equity Afia health franchise to 41 medical centers operated by 38 medical doctors and hopes to record 600,000 patient visits by end of the year.
The Group has over the last two years scaled the Wings to Fly Scholarship Program (funded by Mastercard Foundation, Equity Bank, KfW and other partners) with 18,000 Elimu Scholarships by the Government of Kenya with the support of World Bank bringing the Secondary School Scholarships to 37,000. In 2021, 86% of the Wings to Fly graduates attained university entry grades.
“We recognize that beyond a regulator license we also get a license from our host communities and we have continued to treat them as significant stakeholders and invest in them through our shared prosperity programme”
The Equity Leadership Program has thus far benefitted 17,000 scholars, 893 being beneficiaries of Global Scholarships and the balance attending Kenyan Public universities and TVETs.
In its efforts to conserve the environment, Equity continued with the tree-planting initiative launched in 2019 that aims to see 35 million trees planted by 2024.
This is in support of the national government plans to increase and maintain the country’s forest cover at 10%. So far, 7 million trees have been planted.
In addition to tree planting activities, Equity through its foundation encourages conservation measures especially in schools and smart use of natural resources by expanding forest cover, improving water security, access to clean energy products and promoting the use of renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies.
It is providing financing for one million clean energy devices, offering to transform 30,000 schools that use wood fuel for cooking in their kitchens to use LPG.
So far, 273,635 clean energy products have been distributed through this initiative.
The Group has continued to offer support to the Government, UN Agencies and donor community to reach 3.3 million households with cash payments under the Social Safety Net Program.
The Group has intensified effort to transform peasant farmers with agri-business and enhance the financial and entrepreneurial capacity of over 3 million enterprises.
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