Etisalat

Etisalat offers products designed for people with disabilities and ensures that its services are adapted for their needs.

Through its subsidiary Moov, Etisalat operates a programme in the Côte d’Ivoire, through which it has taught digital skills needed to conduct business online. The company also provided free mobile data to students in the UAE as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Etisalat follows best practice by reporting the number of data breaches. It also demonstrates high-level accountability for information security through executive-level positions and committees. In UAE, the company offers a service that allows parents to control the online content accessible to their children and educates the public on child online safety.

Etisalat supports the start-up community through competitions, business hubs and mentoring. It supports Moroccan start-ups focusing on solving various sustainability challenges, as well as start-ups from Burkina Faso led by women. The company deploys innovative solutions for more environmentally efficient city management.

While Etisalat offers products designed for people with disabilities, it has an opportunity to expand its support for universal and affordable access to digital technologies for vulnerable groups. It can also expand its support for digital inclusivity for women and girls. The company should follow best practice by disclosing how many people with disabilities it employs. Additionally, Etisalat can disclose how the economic value it generates is distributed among stakeholders and report taxes paid and employment in the markets in which it operates.

Etisalat has an opportunity to improve in the area by supporting digital literacy and technical skills development. The company should also report on the financial and in-kind contributions it provides to the programmes it operates, as well as the impact these programmes achieve. Etisalat can also consider an ongoing programme for advancing school connectivity.

Etisalat can disclose how it monitors and responds to information security incidents. The company reports being certified by internationally recognised information security standards, but it can make a copy of the certificate publicly available. Etisalat should follow best practice and report the number of government requests for personal information. It should also adopt a group-level privacy policy that applies the same rules to all customers, regardless of their location. Despite its efforts to keep children safe online, the company can institute a group-wide commitment to child online protection.

There is little evidence of Etisalat’s support for open innovation besides participating in some standards organisations. The company can demonstrate how it supports external research through partnership with universities and non-profits. Given the evidence that Etisalat operates a research and innovation centre, it can provide transparency on how many women it employs in research and development (R&D), as well as how it applies ethics in its R&D activities.

Etisalat states in its sustainability report that it supports human rights and has a zero-tolerance commitment in regard to human rights violations. However, no formal policies or commitments of the company relating to respect for human rights were found in the public domain. Etisalat does not have a publicly available policy statement that commits the company to respect the ILO fundamental labour rights. Nor does it disclose a process to identify, assess and mitigate the salient human rights risks associated with its own operations and with its business relationships. Furthermore, it is unclear if the grievance mechanism the company provides for workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights complaints and concerns allows complainants to choose to remain anonymous.

Etisalat publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers, and it places health and safety expectations on its business relationships and monitors their performance. In relation to workforce diversity, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender. However, it does this only for its headquarters and not its entire workforce. It also does not disclose employee breakdowns against other indicators of diversity. Etisalat lacks disclosure on topics such as living wages, working hours and collective bargaining. For example, it does not explicitly state that it does not require workers to work more than regular and overtime hours, and it does not disclose the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Etisalat has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with its business relationships. The company takes steps to identify and address bribery and corruption and has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic. However, the company does not disclose any relevant information in relation to tax, such as a global tax strategy or income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. Furthermore, Etisalat does not disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement. Specifically, the company has no public statement indicating that it does not make political contributions, and it does not disclose its lobbying expenditures.

The below datasheet disaggregates scores within the three core social measurement areas and by specific indicators.