Airtel joins UN global compact initiative

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 13 – Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications services provider with over 300 million customers across operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa has officially joined the United Nations Global Compact a voluntary initiative that relies on public accountability, transparency and disclosure to complement regulations and to provide space for innovation and collective action.

Airtel Kenya CEO Adil El Youssefi expressed the company’s commitment to the Global Compact during a meeting with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) CEO and Global Compact Network Kenya representative Betty Maina at KAM head office in Westlands, Nairobi.

The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate responsibility initiative with 8,000 business participants and 4,000 non-business stakeholders from more than 140 countries.

Through its web of over 100 Local Networks spanning every region of the world, the Global Compact aims to balance global reach with local contextualization of its ten principles and related corporate citizenship issues.

El Youssefi further said that: “Airtel is in the position to advance the tenets of corporate responsibility and the Global Compact’s ten universally accepted principles. We remain committed to conduct our business with the utmost respect for universal principles around human rights, workplace standards, responsible environmental practices, and anti-corruption.”

Ms. Betty Maina explained that Airtel is the first local company to voluntarily support the local network to further its mandate of promoting the corporate sustainability movement in Kenya. She further said that Airtel’s commitment and display of confidence in the program and its local management sets a good example for other companies in Kenya.

Airtel has in recent years implemented a range of corporate citizenship initiatives and projects that focus on education, environment and health with an aim of empowering the community.