Entrepreneurs play an important, active role in society. As part of its environmental and social standards, DEG expects its customers to implement sound community, health and safety management for neighbouring communities. Active interaction with local communities is a win-win situation for all involved: companies encourage local social acceptance and support for their activities, while communities benefit from an increase in amenities and opportunities that would not otherwise exist.
78% of the manufacturing companies and infrastructure projects in DEG’s portfolio have implemented a community, health and safety management in line with DEG’s environmental and social standards.
In addition, almost 85% of DEG’s portfolio companies engage in community development activities. During the last reporting year, each company made an average amount equivalent to around EUR 1.14 million available for community development. The most common areas for investment were education and healthcare.
Where necessary, DEG advises its customers on how they can organise their social commitment, taking into account the needs of local communities. DEG supports companies by offering promotional programmes in areas such as setting up a comprehensive stakeholder management and in developing projects with surrounding communities that promote sustainable structures on the ground, for example through know-how transfer or the development of small local economic sectors.
It is important to communities that local residents can approach a company directly when they have concerns. This enables any potential problems to be brought to the attention of the company so that it can take remedial action. A structured complaints management system is not only a means of communication with customers in order to improve services and customer loyalty – it is also an important tool for internal and external stakeholders and demonstrates an institution's commitment to transparency and ethical business practices. Establishing a complaints mechanism is a requirement of the international environmental and social standards which DEG has undertaken to uphold.
82% of DEG’s portfolio companies have set up a complaints management mechanism.
Name: Banco Cooperativo Sicredi S.A.
Invested volume (in EUR) as of 31.12.2023: 57.3 million
Country: Brasil
DERa category: Community benefits
Only 33% of business owners in Brazil are women. Sicredi, a leading cooperative system, supports the growth of women-owned micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (WMSMEs) in Brazil. By promoting new credit tools that facilitate access to finance for small enterprises, it aims to reduce gender inequalities in access to credit and empower women. DEG has provided Sicredi with a long-term senior loan for this purpose.
Through the Sicredi Foundation, the entity developed several educational programmes such as the A União Faz a Vida Program. It supports schools in the evaluation and development of their education models. Over the past decades, it generated positive impacts in over 3,900 schools in over 650 cities in 15 Brazilian states, and continues to improve educational quality through trainings and publications for pedagogical advisors, teachers and school managers.
Name: Lake Turkana Wind Power Ltd.
Invested volume (in EUR) as of 31.12.2023: 9.2 million
Country: Kenya
DERa category: Community benefits
Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) operates Africa’s largest wind farm (310 MW) in Kenya. It is comprised of 365 wind turbines, 850 KW each. LTWP provides reliable, low-cost energy to Kenya’s national grid, substantially reducing the supply gap in the local electricity market. In 2023, LTWP generated 11% of all energy delivered to domestic, commercial and public consumers via Kenya’s national grid.
Since inception, LTWP has been committed to ensuring that the local communities benefit from the wind farm’s presence in Marsabit county, a remote and underdeveloped part of the country. As part of this commitment, LTWP established an NGO – Winds of Change (WoC) – through which it implements sustainable community development projects throughout the wind farm’s area of influence (i.e. Laisamis Constituency ~22,000 km2). The primary focus of WoC is to enhance access to education, health and water, as well as support miscellaneous community development activities. Since June 2015, WoC has implemented over 90 community projects at a total cost of approx. EUR 4.5 million. This includes, amongst others, the construction/rehabilitation and/or equipping of school, health and water facilities. To maximise the impact of WoC’s expenditure, overhead, operational and administrative costs are provided for LTWP in relation to these projects. Additionally, LTWP uses a localised employment strategy to increase its social and economic impact in the area.
DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH
Kämmergasse 22, 50676 Cologne, Germany
Phone +49 (0)221 4986-0
