Huawei Kenya launches first Sustainability Report Highlighting Efforts to Expand Broadband Nationwide and Solutions to Drive Kenya’s Digital Transformation

Today, whilst global leaders are in New York at the UN General Assembly discussing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Huawei Kenya released its first Sustainability Report showing how it is acting responsibly and rolling out innovations to contribute to achieving the SDGs in Kenya. The Principal Secretary for ICT and Innovation, Jerome Ochieng, and the Charge d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, Li Xuhang, were amongst the dignitaries attending the report launch commending Huawei for their efforts.

“Kuwa Nawe, Kua Nawe”; “Being with You, Growing with You” is the theme for the report, emphasizing Huawei’s ongoing, long-term commitment and support to helping the Kenyan people and Kenya itself develop and grow.

The report highlights Huawei’s contribution to all 17 of the SDGs and the close partnership Huawei has with its telecommunications customers, government and enterprise customers, development partners, ecosystem partners such as Universities and Community Organisations, suppliers, and employees.

The report reveals Huawei Kenya:

• Employs 400 staff and directly creates jobs for a further 2,200 staff through local sub-contractors with whom Huawei spends over KES 3.5billion each year.
• Has trained more than 5,000 people through its East Africa Training Center, Seeds for the Future programme, Digital Skills for Life programme, ICT Skills Academies and the Presidential Digital Talent Programme.
• Has built over 3,5000 mobile base stations (46 of which are solar powered) and 4,000km of fiber in Kenya for its customers, as well as brought both cutting-edge and affordable smartphones to Kenyans helping bring communications and broadband access across Kenya.
• Has developed a five-tiered approach to developing ICT skills and talent in Kenya that has trained 551 rural Isiolo residents on digital literacy, trained 30 disadvantaged youth, provided internships to over 30 undergraduates and 45 graduates a year, and launched ICT Academies with more than 11 Universities to enhance their curriculum and student training.

Huawei Kenya has collaborated closely to develop and implement innovative solutions in many areas transforming:

• Safety with Safaricom for the National Police Service
• Health with Safaricom and UNFPA for the Lamu County Government
• Transport with Kenya Urban Roads Authority
• Financial inclusion for Safaricom
• Education for Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development

Speaking at the launch of the report, Stone He, CEO of Huawei Kenya noted that “ICT is a critical part to Kenya’s socio-economic development and a critical enabler for Kenya’s Big Four agenda. Huawei’s products and solutions are helping with Kenya’s digital transformation, creating economic growth, jobs and social development in collaboration with our strategic partners”.

In the report’s CEO welcome remarks, he noted the three priorities for the company in Kenya:

• Integrating sustainability into business operations and strategy
• Aligning core competencies and innovation capabilities to the sustainability needs of Kenya
• Seeking symbiosis and win-win situations between the company and local society; and between leveraging global resources and localizing operations

Commenting at the launch of the report, Principal Secretary in the State Department for ICT and Innovation, Jerome Ochieng, commended Huawei for launching their first country-specific Corporate Sustainability Report in Africa and said “the Seeds for the Future is one of the many Corporate Social Responsibility programs that Huawei runs in Kenya and has been successfully running for 5 years, bringing life changing experiences to students. The Huawei Kenya Sustainability Report highlights Huawei’s activities in ICT capacity building, ensuring secure and stable network operations, protecting and conserving the environment, and empowering the disadvantaged to name but a few.”

Charges d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, Mr Li Xuhang said: “This report not only gives a comprehensive picture of Huawei’s business in Kenya, but also the social impacts that have been created through a number of projects and initiatives. The Chinese companies have come here to invest, they have created local employment, contributed to local taxation, improved infrastructure and boosted economic and social development. In the same time, they have actively taken on their social responsibilities to contribute to local communities and grow together with Kenya of which Huawei is an outstanding example.” Li mentioned that the Kenya-China Economic and Trade Association last year published the first country-specific Chinese companies’ Social Responsibility Report and some other Chinese companies including CRBC have also released their own reports. He encouraged people to refer to these reports to get a better understanding of Chines Companies’ operations in Kenya so as to avoid mistrust and in some cases out-front arguments. He thanked the Kenyan government for providing a friendly business environment and urged all Chinese companies to make greater contribution to the local communities.

In the report key themes emerge around the high quality and innovative nature of Huawei’s products, as well as how they are tailored to the local context as part of Huawei’s localization efforts. Huawei Kenya has contributed over KES 300m to communities improving education, environmental conservation and supporting vulnerable groups. They have made great progress in recruiting, training and developing hundreds of local employees so that more than 20 staff have remained with Huawei for more than 8 years.

Meanwhile Huawei Kenya has not neglected its fundamental responsibilities such as ensuring stable, secure networks for 30 million Kenyans, incorporating the highest levels of quality, cyber security and user privacy into all products, reducing the environmental impacts of product production and use, and ensuring the highest standards of health and safety in its own operations and those of its sub-contractors.

The report can be downloaded from www.huawei.com/explore-kenya or specifically at https://www.huawei.com/minisite/explore-kenya/pdf/huawei_kenya_csd_report.pdf

Huawei’s global Sustainability Report is available from https://huawei.com/en/about-huawei/sustainability