Equity Group has posted impressive financial results for the third quarter of 2021 among them the social impact investments which currently stand at 513 million US dollars.
These investment facilitates various programs in different sectors including education, health, enterprise development, food and agriculture, social protection and energy, and environment.
According to the Group’s Foundation, the bank has supported 37,000 secondary school Wings to Fly scholarships and 17,000 University scholarship under the Equity Leadership Program.
Moreover, Equity Bank has extended 3,000 TVET scholarships and 700 Global university scholarships.
In the health sector, the bank has 46 clinics (Equity Afia clinics) that have provided medical care to 572,707 patients.
“A shared value business model is economically viable and sustainable. Doing well can go hand in hand with doing good. Our corporate social arm, Equity Group Foundation has scaled its operations to reach a spend of US$513 million in social investment programs,” said Equity Group in a statement.
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In support to climate change initatives, the bank has planted 7.1 million trees and financed and distributed 303,000 clean energy products to reduce the carbon print in countries it operates.
Through the Equity Group Foundation, the bank has scaled its financial inclusion programs reaching 2.3 million women and youth with 11-week financial training programs.
“We have also supported 2.24 million small-scale farmers to convert into agri-businesses trained 317,000 MSMEs in entrepreneurship and accessed them Ksh.111.5 billion in credit facilities,” Dr. Mwangi the Group CEO while releasing the results.
Dr. mwangi added that the investment enhanced the Group’s infrastructure to support disbursement of 92.7 billion shillings in cash transfers to over 3.4 million households.
Inspired by the work of the Equity Group Foundation and the success of the COVID-19 response programs, Equity has also launched an ambitious 5 billion US dollar business and private sector COVID-19 recovery program.
The audacious post-Covid-19 recovery program will support 5 million SMEs with loans up to 500 billion shillings to accelerate recovery and growth post-COVID-19 with a view of creating 25 million direct jobs and another 25 million indirect jobs.
The initiative is in partnership with governments of the 6 countries we have operations in and will center on the promotion of cross-border trade under the East African community and African Continental Free Trade Area protocols.
“The program has won the support of United Nations (UN) under the sustainable development goals template, Development Banks, Mastercard Foundation under our Young Africa Works partnership and the Private Sector business actors,” concluded Dr. Mwangi.