VEON

VEON has been providing free internet during the COVID-19 pandemic to 25 social institutions that support children and adults with disabilities in Georgia. The company also addresses the gender digital divide in a joint programme with Facebook, through which it has educated 16,000 women in Bangladesh on safe and responsible use of digital technologies. VEON follows best practice by disclosing the number of people it employs in each of its countries of operations.

Through its subsidiary Beeline Russia, VEON operates a programme supporting people with disabilities to improve their digital skills and connect with job opportunities. The company further provides access to the internet to 200 schools across the markets where it operates.

VEON reports its data breaches and applies the same privacy principles across all its countries of operations.

VEON supports the tech innovation ecosystem through venture capital and start-up incubators in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

VEON can improve its performance by reporting its financial or in-kind contribution to programmes for providing affordable access to the internet and addressing the gender digital divide. It can also commission a third party to verify the impact of these programmes. The company operates a programme for digital skills development among people with disabilities. However, in addition to this, it can provide evidence of how it integrates accessibility features into its services. VEON should also report how the economic value it generates is distributed among its stakeholders and the taxes it pays in its countries of operations.

While VEON operates programmes across different areas, it has an opportunity to specifically expand its efforts in promoting technical digital skills development. Additionally, the company can provide more detailed information about its existing programmes, especially the contribution it makes to these programmes and the impacts achieved.

VEON can better demonstrate senior-level accountability for cybersecurity and how it manages information security in practice. It also has an opportunity to report the number of government requests it receives for personal information. VEON should make a high-level commitment to child online protection and implement activities in this area across the group.

VEON has an opportunity to demonstrate its approach to open, sustainable, inclusive and ethical innovation. It can collaborate with universities on technology and sustainability research topics. It can also disclose how it aims to reduce its environmental footprint. Furthermore, the company should report how many women it employs in research and development (R&D) roles, and how it applies ethics in its R&D activities.

VEON commits to respecting human rights, and has a grievance mechanism accessible to both workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints. However, the company does not commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. Furthermore, the company does not disclose a process to identify, assess and take action on salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships. Moreover, VEON does not engage with stakeholders whose human rights could be impacted by its operations.

VEON publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers, and it places health and safety expectations on its business relationships. The company also discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. However, it does not specify that it does not require workers to work more than regular and overtime hours. It also provides no relevant information in reference to providing its workers a living wage. VEON provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender, and commits to women’s empowerment and gender equality. The company does not disclose against any other indicators of diversity per employee category.

VEON does not disclose any relevant information in relation to tax, such as a global tax strategy or income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. In relation to lobbying and political engagement, the company states that it does not make political contributions. However, it does not disclose its overarching approach to lobbying and political engagement in a publicly available policy statement. VEON does, however, have a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with its business relationships. Furthermore, the company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic.

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