Stanbic Bank of Botswana – Leading the charge in fostering an effective SEE framework

Stanbic Bank of Botswana

LEADING THE CHARGE IN FOSTERING AN EFFECTIVE SEE FRAMEWORK

Stanbic Bank of Botswana continues to lead the charge in responding to the needs of the communities it is operating in, covering key aspects of economy such as education and youth empowerment. The Responsible CITIZEN Magazine caught up with Stanbic Bank Communications Manager

RUTH SIBANDA and Head of Accelerate

Incubator LARONA MAKGOENG to discuss the banking institutions take on the impetus behind its Social, Environmental and Economic (SEE) framework.

TRC: What are some of the SEE projects that Stanbic Bank Botswana have embarked on? It is perhaps important to first get a sense of how creating shared value fits into our model. We’ve adopted a Social, Environmental and Economic (SEE) framework as the value drivers which inform our strategy, and against which we measure our performance. Our sustainability and success are inextricably linked to the prosperity and wellbeing of all. To achieve our Purpose (Botswana is our home; we drive her growth), our core business activities must support and contribute to this prosperity and wellbeing. The reality facing us is that the Bank’s business activities have wide and far-reaching SEE impacts in the economies and communities in which we operate.

We are committed to understanding these impacts, which are direct and indirect, and using this understanding to inform our decision-making at every level. This enables us to maximise the positive impacts of our business, and minimise and mitigate the negative impacts, while simultaneously generating new business opportunities and financial returns for the group.

In 2019, we identified 6 impact areas in which we believe that Stanbic Bank can make a significant positive SEE impact across our strategy period: education, financial inclusion, infrastruc-

ture; job creation and enterprise growth; African trade & investment; and climate change and environmental sustainability. Our key focus right now is Job Creation and Enterprise Growth, and this informs our focus areas, being youth employability and entrepreneurship, education, and health.

TRC: How has Stanbic contributed to poverty alleviation through its SEE framework? Poverty alleviation is not a direct focus area, but it certainly is indirectly touched on. For instance, our focus on youth employability and entrepreneurship falls under the SEE focus areas of Job Creation and Enterprise Growth. We want to actively work to help support youth in making them more employable and attractive to employers and to empower them with entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship skills and opportunities in a sustainable manner so that we can reduce the youth unemployment figure into a single digit, and eventually, into nothing. This inherently means working to stop-gap the proportion of your youth that are currently unemployed and potentially falling into the poverty bracket.

TRC: Which have been the most noteworthy CSR investments Stanbic has been involved in since inception? We have touched on a number of areas since inception and are both proud and privileged to have been able to wield great impact over the last 3 decades since we first opened our doors. The strategic focus of our CSI programme is on Youth Employability & Entrepreneurship, Education and Health, aligned with our vision of striving to improve the lives of Batswana. In the Education space, our aim is to empower Botswana’s youth with the necessary motivation and infrastructure to help promote academic excellence. Our efforts are a part of the Nationwide financial literacy drive. This is a long-term vision, ensuring we educate our youth and support that journey of productive, sustainable knowledge-creation further.

In recent years, we have sought to engage, collaborate and deliver impact through such key platforms as supporting the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) graduations and various conferences hosted by the University, support for the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) Annual Excellence Awards, a long-term relationship of donations, engage and support to empower students of Mahupu Unified Secondary School and Motswedi Junior Secondary School, and a 6 years of hosting and growing our financial Literacy radio show in local radio station, Yarona FM.

Financial Literacy remains a substantive area of focus for Stanbic Bank Botswana, building upon an already strong legacy in this space. This includes championing collaborative efforts and partnerships, speaking opportunities and engagements, and published financial literacy guides, and more. We also disseminate thought leadership and financial literacy driven insights in local print and radio publications on a regular basis.

TRC: How sustainable are the SEE projects the bank aligns itself with? Sustainability is a key criterion when we evaluate potential SEE efforts or projects. We want to ensure long-term, sustainable impact when we create shared value in and with communities, and not simply provide “flash in the pan” assistance. It is easy to speak of sustainability as the new popular phrase or brand jargon, but our focus is on ensuring not just action and not rhetoric but sustainable action and impact that helps drive Botswana’s growth.

Our Social, Economic & Environmental (SEE) framework is built on ensuring there is sustainability to our initiatives. Under each of these 3 pillars our interventions are designed for long term sustainability. We have a SEE oversight committee which ensures alignment to strategy and well thought out process. Our interventions are built on creating impact. The specific focus of initiatives/ partner organizations that we will work with for 2021 is premised on the value that can be realized from those initiatives overtime.

The focus on the multiplier effect of our investments determines what type of initiatives we will get involved in.

TRC: Is Stanbic SEE inclusive, or it targets certain groups or gender? Our focus is on ensuring compliance with community standards, the impact of being a good corporate citizen, sustainability, mitigating risk and harm, and improving trust and reputation. We do not discriminate nor favour certain genders or groups, but we do work to ensure any projects or investments add shared value and are sustainable and in line with our Accelerate mandate. and adhere to best practice and governance. Sound corporate governance is central to our business philosophy.

We are an inclusive organisation that is cognisant of the need to be balanced and representative of all segments of society. Our recently publicly placed call for ‘expression of interest’ is designed with specific target for women and youth. The design of this preferential procurement framework targets women and youth as special groups for which we have identified needing to be intervened for as regards economic empowerment. We would use this framework to ensure that our procurement is capacity building and developing of local businesses.

TRC: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the bank’s CSR mission? The need for community support is perhaps now greater than ever, as the impacts of COVID-19 on individuals, communities and businesses continues to take its toll. Now is not the time to pull back CSI investment, but to increase or intensify it where possible. This has been our focus, within our chosen CSI focus areas and yet with the pandemic in mind. We have donated to the National Relief Fund as well as made considerable donations in line with youth employability and entrepreneurship, education and health. This ranges from donations of masks and other PPE to BOSETU and similar institutions to more localized donations to schools such as Mahupu Unified Secondary School in Takatokwane and Therisanyo Primary School in Old Naledi. We are stronger together and we all need to help protect Botswana and indeed Batswana. We remain committed and passionate to heed this call, and to collaborate accordingly where possible to deliver on this.

The pandemic has had a negative bearing obviously owing to that commercially every business has been spared. However, owing to the understanding that the health of our business is premised on creating shared value through commercial strategy alignment we are sharpening our approach to how our operations deliver shared value through our footprint. As a matter of policy 1% of profit after tax (PAT) is reserved for the Social Economic Environmental (SEE) so this protects the allocation

that is due to initiatives that fall under this pillar. Moreover, our commercial strategy is being aligned to address the imperatives of the SEE pillar and this entails deliberate creation of opportunities for the entrepreneurship to thrive such that it can add to the country economic activity.

• Social Focus: We have identified a couple of on the ground youth led initiates, organizations and individuals whose work aligns to ACCELERATE in terms of creating impact and whose work has greater potential to create greater social impact going forward and some of these include, Kgomotso Phatsima’s Dare to Dream social enterprise, through a tripartite alliance that has Airbus Foundation. We will provide technical equipment (tablets) for the rollout of the little engineer programme which is targeting 1000 students for 2021. The impact of this may not be immediately interpretive but long the STEM careers will emerge out of this, and we reckon its better we influence the future today.

Our other social intervention project is on the apprentice teen music group dubbed Botswana Society for Jazz Education (BOSJE) who have just released an intended play compilation who we are intending to help grow into professional musicians. We will be paying for twenty (20) youth to acquire internationally recognized music qualifications at the highly reputable associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) which has been in the trade of providing music qualifications since 1889. This will be very significant to influence their careers towards professionalism. There is a lot more of these social impact initiatives that we will be launching in time.

• Economic Focus: A preferential procurement framework between ACCELERATE and Finance/ Procurement function has been initiated to ensure there is deliberate sourcing from startups, youth and women owned businesses in a sustainable manner that will ensure their development and capacity building for growth.

• Environmental Focus: The Bank is embarking on initiatives that will lessen its carbon footprint by investing in green technologies in terms of running our offices and we will to the extent possible depending on local capabilities procure and use local suppliers and distributors for these installations. As is we already have motion detectors/ sensors installed to curb unnecessary electricity usage and wastage.

Additionally, we now avail green asset financing targeting households, and this will add impetus to our quest as a financial service provider to shape and influence the uptake of green energy and help bring green energy into our national grid. When you look at this from a composite view this initiative will also economically empower Batswana when the time comes for them to sell back to the grid, it will effectively put a penny back into their pocket and allow to save and provide a cushion to the tough economic times in which we are in.

TRC: Which sectors of the economy that Stanbic invests on through its SEE initiatives? Our shared value model targets agriculture, manufacturing, creative arts, technology and social entrepreneurship among others. One other focus area has been in the health sector space particularly now owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have made significant contributions both monetary and material to fighting the current pandemic.

TRC: Does Stanbic have a Corporate Social Investments Policy and what is its mission? Yes, however, this policy is currently being reviewed to further inform our SEE strategy as described above. Our mission is to wield positive and sustainable impact to create shared valued and improve the lives of Batswana.

TRC: There is often an argument that the commercial entities exist just to make the profits without putting emphasis to problems affecting communities which they operate within. What is the bank’s take on that? This certainly happens in some businesses and come industries. However, it is not the culture nor the business philosophy at Stanbic Bank Botswana. We recognise that Stanbic Bank’s sustainability and success are inextricably linked to the prosperity and wellbeing of all. To achieve our Purpose, “Botswana is our home, we drive her growth,” our core business activities must support and contribute to this prosperity and wellbeing. The reality facing us is that the Bank’s business activities have wide and far-reaching impacts in the economies and communities in which we operate. Our business activities are grounded by and in Social, Economic and Environmental (SEE) impacts, both towards the National economy and in the communities in which we operate.

We are committed to understanding these impacts, which are direct and indirect, and to using this understanding to inform our decision-making at every level. This enables us to maximise the positive impacts of our business, and minimise and mitigate the negative impacts, while simultaneously generating new business opportunities and financial returns.

It is both passion and indeed in our best interests to actively invest and support our communities, and part of the SEE value driver shared about earlier is this understanding that there is more to our business that the bottom line or profits, for we are a better business no in spite of our CSI efforts, but because of them.

TRC: Would you say the beneficiaries of Stanbic CSR understand and appreciate the assistance? We certainly hope so, but the ambition and objective for us is not to receive thanks, gratitude or recognition. It is to know that we are contributing, big or small, to positively improving lives, creating sustainable value, and driving progress. This is in line with our Purpose (“Botswana is our home, we drive her growth”), and indeed underscores our brand promise “It Can Be” which is anchored in our desire to turn dreams into lasting realities for ALL Batswana.

TRC: Are your CSR initiatives cover the entire country, or they are mostly focused within the areas of your operations? We look to invest in communities and create sustainable value for people across Botswana. At Bank level, this means nationwide efforts for financial literacy, for example. However, some of the CSI efforts are of course driven at branch level, and thus focused on the communities in the immediate sphere of influence of that branch. Our desire is to wield maximum impact and ensure the utmost inclusion.