“We are not the sources of problems; we are the resources that are needed to solve them. We are not expenses; we are investments. We are not just young people; we are people and citizens of this world.”
This powerful statement by children at the UN Special Session on Children in 2002 called on governments, businesses and others to make a world fit for them.
For Bob Collymore, CEO of Kenya’s largest mobile operator Safaricom and a board member of the UN Global Compact, investing in and protecting young people is a priority. He has put child rights at the heart of Safaricom’s business in recent years and is working hard to persuade his peers to do the same.
“We’re a big company in Kenya and some responsibilities come with that. If we’re to protect the future generation, we have to protect their rights as well,” he explains. “We can’t do it on our own, so partnerships and bringing the rest of the Kenyan private sector along with us is really important.”
With smartphone connections in sub-Saharan Africa forecast to reach over half a billion by 2020 and technology playing an increasingly important role in addressing socio-economic challenges, Safaricom’s focus on young people makes good sense – from both a business perspective and its potential impact on society.
As Collymore says, “Many kids in Kenya will probably not see a computer or laptop until adulthood so the major benefit of handheld devices is that it gives them access to the internet and access to knowledge. We’re working with the government, for example, to provide free internet access to government primary schools. We think that’s a significant piece – if we’re to close the education disparity between a country like Kenya and the rest of the world, we need to give them that access.”
Safaricom also offers parental controls so that parents can limit what their children see online and is currently developing child-friendly content to be pre-loaded on mobiles and TV set-top boxes in the next 12 months. When UNICEF approached Collymore about the Children’s Rights and Business Principles, he recognised how Safaricom could further shape the way it does business with young people in mind.
“We were doing things that were benefitting children but we didn’t have a child rights policy in place. So I asked the team to put together a policy using the Children’s Rights and Business Principles as the basis and we worked very closely with UNICEF. I think we were probably one of the first companies to have a specific policy that addresses children’s rights.” Safaricom also made sure that children and teenagers, including representatives of the Kenya National Children’s Government were involved in the development of the policy.
“We also launched the policy with the young people so that they could tell the story from their perspective and it was not just adults prescribing a policy for them.”
Safaricom then engaged child rights champions in each business function to implement the policy and advance children’s rights across the organisation. The marketing team introduced equal pay for adults and children who feature in the company’s advertisements, for example, and Safaricom’s mobile medical camps now include children-only facilities.
Other company initiatives include on-site crèches for employees’ children run by professional childcare workers and doctors; the company’s hundreds of suppliers undertaking self-assessment to ensure children are not involved in the supply chain; and a child-friendly zone at the recent Safaricom International Jazz Festival.
Having put child rights on the radar, Collymore acknowledges the importance of measuring how the company performs against the policy. Safaricom plans to use the MO-CRIA – a new child rights impact self-assessment tool for mobile operators – that has been developed by UNICEF, GSMA, Millicom and other stakeholders. As only the second mobile operator worldwide to commit to conducting a child rights impact assessment, Safaricom aims to continue influencing other business leaders through its commitment to child rights.
“I don’t think the private sector is doing enough yet with the protection of children’s rights. So one of the things I’ve been doing is to pull my fellow CEOs on to the child rights agenda and explain to them why it is they need to get involved rather than leave it for rights groups and civil society to deal with.”
Collymore emphasises this is not about short-term gains; Safaricom is in it for the long haul. “We believe that if you want to run a business that will be sustainable 50 or 60 years from now, we have to look after future generations and not just manage our business for today’s benefits.”
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