Giving our actions purpose and creating a positive impact for African economies and society

In times like the one we are living today, it's easy to give in to cynicism, pessimism and fear.

And yet, I have not, and I hope I will not, because the opportunities, resources and knowledge that are crucial to our recovery are right here in our continent of Africa.

That is why I am so proud of what we have accomplished of late despite the challenging economic context. I am proud to bear witness to the success that our novel Impact Management team has had, just as I was proud to announce the AXIAN Foundation's launch just a few days ago—a clear demonstration of our commitment to directly helping society's most vulnerable. Such actions are a cornerstone of the responsibilities and obligations that I think companies have towards society in the 21st century: it is our duty that our actions have a lasting positive impact on us all.

THE PRIVATE SECTOR HAS TO WEIGH IN

The difficult times that we are navigating right now show the importance of our actions having purpose. I wholeheartedly believe in our continent and its vast potential.

I am convinced that Africa will be a role model and a hub in the future.

However, we cannot progress towards that future by limiting our thinking to profit-making. A company that only prioritizes that and economic growth cannot thrive in today's climate. Companies that are stuck in this thought must rethink their strategies, and we must collectively repurpose our actions towards a longer-term scope that transcends financial performance and emphasises socio-economic impact. Our communities and institutions must nurture such a philosophy, because African tradition is very much founded on legacy—on what we pass down to future generations.

“Private-sector companies are key partners in our push to reach the Sustainable Development Goals[SDGs]. They can contribute to these goals and as such, we ask each of them to study their impact, set ambitious goals and to communicate their progress transparently.” ~Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General

This engagement must first and foremost be borne by our people. We answered the Secretary General's call to action by joining the UN′s Global Compact initiative. As part of my broader advocacy for sustainable economic growth, I hope that we can all have a positive impact not just in Madagascar but across all of Africa.

It thus remains critical that the private sector mobilises to join the push toward the SDGs.

It is critical that we act with intent and with a purpose of bringing about economies that are inclusive, just and achieve sustainable growth.

CONCRETE POSITIVE IMPACT, THE HEART OF OUR STRATEGY

For a long time, I struggled to define, refine and make this purpose a core component of AXIAN's strategy—and quantify it so it could also be a performance metric. This positive impact, for me, has to be the driving force behind all of our actions. It must drive digital, energy and financial inclusion for all by generating value in industries with high growth potential that drive economies. How? By quantifying concrete positive impact and making it into a metric that helps us evaluate how our actions affect other members of our communities.

Last year, we founded a dedicated Impact Management team to ensure that positive impact is not just a guiding philosophy—it becomes a concrete and measurable byproduct of what we do. This impact management team has now developed a proprietary impact-scoring system, which it uses to study and expand the impact of our companies. It is a key pillar of support for a company's social responsibility to effect long-term, purposeful change. Our impact scoring index will help communicate to our stakeholders on how conscientious AXIAN and its 4,900 employees are of our duty to society.

Acting on our environmental conscience, BNI and GES met at AXIAN headquarters in 2019 to discuss what bank branches will be like in the future. Among other things, they discussed challenges such as the banks′ increasing cost and dubious supply of electricity as well as the environment. We thus came to an agreement: to equip 40 BNI branches (about 40% of all branches across Madagascar) with solar panels. This should reduce our carbon emissions by 158 tons per year.

WeLight, another AXIAN subsidiary, works to electrify the most isolated settlements across Africa, and guides their residents towards entrepreneurship. The company also helps give women a greater degree of financial independence by embedding them in value-creating jobs within their communities, and helps micro-enterprises subsistence farmers and commercial farmers develop across Madagascar and all of Africa. In Madagascar, WeLight has given over 13,000 people across 23 settlements access to electricity.

THE AXIAN FOUNDATION SUPPORTS THE GROUP′S CSR STRATEGY

Meanwhile, The AXIAN Foundation—charged with coordinating the group's philanthropic actions—mirrors this same dedication to positive impact in 4 particular domains, namely education, community development, the environment and sustainable development.

I truly believe that bringing about a better quality of life for Africa's most vulnerable citizens is a shared responsibility that we must all partake in, starting with the continent's economic actors. The AXIAN Foundation's creation to carry out our group's social and environmental responsibilities has allowed us to respond directly to vulnerable people's needs efficiently with concrete, sustainable solutions.

I hope to make this Foundation a paragon of the private sector's corporate social responsibility across Africa. Because of this, from today onwards, we will act in Madagascar, Togo, Senegal and the Comoros through far-reaching programs designed to have a far-reaching positive impact on the most vulnerable people across the continent.

All these concrete examples of what we have achieved give me tremendous hope for a future; one that I look forward to with optimism. As private-sector companies, we do not simply have a role to play… we are key players! To be eco-friendly, to promote taking care of each other and working together, to grow together while working towards innovative, sustainable and durable economic growth—these are all duties that we share. In the end, this duty trumps all national pride and how we carry it out will not only shape our markets, but our society on a global scale.