“S” AT THE CENTRE OF ESG

Being the second largest continent by land and population, Africa is a treasure trove of untapped talent and potential. However, we are also the continent with the largest share of extreme poverty globally and home to some of the most vulnerable communities in the world. Systemic, structural, and historical issues have a major impact on economic activity, and we know that if your community is starved, ill and vulnerable, your long-term economic sustainability hangs in the balance.

For this reason, we at Sanlam believe the ‘S’ in ESG should take centre stage, particularly in the African context. Africa has a significantly younger population compared to other continents, and our population is our greatest resource. Therefore, as a responsible and caring corporate citizen with a Pan-African footprint across 33 countries and counting, Sanlam is committed to improving the areas in which we operate through ESG, which goes far beyond a tick-box exercise.

The Sanlam ESG Barometer tells us that, among the top 40 JSE-listed companies, risk and compliance management are the biggest reason for investing in ESG. At Sanlam, we’ve undergone a profound metamorphosis from being a compliance-based organisation to an impact-focused organisation - and the results have been clear. This includes the Sanlam Foundation, which plays a big role in compliance by making significant contributions to the B-BBEE scorecard of the Group. However, we have evolved to the point where we believe that achieving compliance and meaningful and measurable impact in communities can be done simultaneously. In fact, compliance and impact can and should be complementary and mutually reinforcing. Now, in our 12th year, the Sanlam Foundation remains the embodiment of the group’s ongoing dedication to addressing socio-economic and environmental challenges. We aim to bring hope, opportunity, and confidence to marginalised and vulnerable communities across Africa, and we are hoping to inspire other businesses to follow suit and integrate impactful ESG roadmaps as core to their overarching strategies.

Investing in the “S” in ESG speaks directly to our purpose to empower generations of Africans to live with confidence.

If we can help build more resilient and confident communities, we can drive financial inclusion and contribute to a more robust economy. Resilience has a ripple effect. If you catalyse greater financial resilience, you capacitate communities for greater climate change - and disaster resilience as well. However, as a population, we are not as “climate change ready” as we should be. This is primarily due to circumstances that have not equipped us to thrive in the face of climate change.

Therefore, empowering our communities, starting with a quality education from the Early Childhood Development phase right through to SMME support initiatives, is key. Making our population resilient and ‘climate change proof’ is of utmost importance if Africa is to survive the social and economic effects of climate change.

The move to being an impact-oriented organisation has taken deep, deliberate planning. The Sanlam Foundation’s vision is built on six pillars:

• Strategy to ensure we are a fit-for-purpose organisation as the Sanlam Foundation and a serious player in tackling some of our continent’s systemic problems;

• Governance to ensure proper procedure and ethics;

• Operations and Delivery to ensure efficient process flow and delivery of our programmes;

• Leverage and Integration to enhance Sanlam’s reputation and reaffirm the Group’s credibility as a responsible and caring corporate citizen;

• Amplification to drive the visibility of our work, and finally;

• Monitoring and Evaluation because we believe in the measurable impact that can be tracked via granular data.

These six pillars are our north star in delivering impactful, data-driven work.

Since our inception in 2011, the Sanlam Foundation has invested more than R652 million, uplifting and empowering communities across the country and continent through 26 different programmes during this time. Here is a sample of the projects we are committed to across the Foundation’s five programmatic pillars:

1. Socio-Economic Development

• Education

Rooted in the belief that every child has the right to the highest standard of education regardless of socio-economic background, the new Sanlam Education Programme kicked off in 2022. It uses a pipeline approach, from early childhood development to secondary school, to deliver interventions designed to address the most chronic challenges facing our education system by focusing on reading, home language development and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

• Environment

Through our partnership with the WWF-SA, we fund projects aimed at improving water security by controlling alien vegetation, encouraging the sustainable use of groundwater, and facilitating water source partnerships for water-scarce areas.

• Youth Soccer

In partnership with The Motsepe Foundation and Ubuntu-Botho Community Development Trust, the Sanlam Foundation cofunds the Kay Motsepe Schools Cup. Sport offers a significant opportunity for leadership skills development and the potential to empower young people in other areas of life.

2. Consumer Financial Education

As Africa's largest non-banking financial services provider, we believe that financial education is the cornerstone of our promise to empower generations to be financially confident, secure, and prosperous.

Among our consumer financial education projects are - WageWise and Money fo’Sho. They aim to upskill individuals through facilitated training focusing on money management, savings, debt, credit and insurance. Together, these projects reached a total of 16 776 people in 2022, 97% of whom were black, 72% female and 57% were youth. Additionally, 45% of the participants were based in rural areas.

3.

Enterprise and Supplier Development

SMEs are the backbone of sustained economic growth and job creation. The Sanlam Foundation invests in initiatives that strengthen existing value chains while creating opportunities to establish new ecosystems in the communities within which Sanlam operates.

We do this through the Sanlam Group ESD Programme, implemented through various projects, including Project Accelerate, Project Elevate, and Project Migrate. Project Accelerate focuses on commodity-based supply chain-aligned SMEs, while Project Elevate and Project Migrate focus on transforming Sanlam’s distribution network.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, an average increase of 37% in revenue has been achieved across all the businesses participating in Project Accelerate. For Project Elevate businesses, an average increase of 37.4% has been achieved, with beneficiaries able to access soft loan funding. For Project Migrate businesses, a 2% increase in revenue was noted.

4. Sanlam Pan Africa

The UN reports that Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of education exclusion worldwide. To help play our part, Sanlam Foundation, Sanlam Uganda, and World Vision Uganda started the Pader District Education Strengthening Project. This initiative improves schools by creating comfortable and safe learning environments for 2883 scholars in this region of Uganda. Using the same tri-partite collaborative model, the Foundation kicked off the Sanlam Kenya Schools Project in 2022 in Mwingi and Kiawara, Kenya, with World Vision Kenya as our partner.

There is a drive to roll out several more projects across the continent in 2022, starting with an education project in Morocco.

5. United for Impact

To us, being purpose-driven means putting care into action. The Sanlam Foundation enables staff across the group to support causes they care about. Under our three staff volunteerism pillars – payroll giving, community-based volunteering, and skills-based volunteering – our team lend a hand to NGOs that are doing good work that resonates with them.

We are committed to using our influence to be the change this continent needs. For us, it’s about creating a legacy we can be proud of for generations to come.