How we engage with our stakeholders

Our customers

More than 166 million customers across Africa use our data, voice and mobile money services to connect, live and work.

Customers are vital to our business model – they drive revenue, influence product development, and shape our brand reputation. In a dynamic and competitive telecoms landscape, our customer relationships shape our ability to navigate market trends, regulatory shifts, and emerging risks while unlocking strategic opportunities. Enhancing customer experience is central to our refined strategy. Failing to understand and meet the needs of customers could lead to loss of market share and revenues.

How we engaged during the year

We aim to engage with our customers using their preferred channel and by giving people convenient options for interacting with us. Our key interaction points are digital: MyAirtel app, unstructured supplementary services data (USSD), our contact centre, automated phone services (IVR), email and social media.

Customers can use our 592 company owned retail outlets, where we talk to them about the products and services that matter to them. Key services at retail outlets include Airtel Money cash and float services, SIM swap, home broadband sales, post-paid collections, and distribution support.

We also hold an annual World Customer Service week, when employees and senior leaders engage with customers and gather their feedback. This year that was augmented by focus group discussions, led by our CEO, which led to a re-prioritisation of initiatives in all OpCos and all Group functions to focus on the things that matter most to our customers.

We continue to use quantitative feedback such as interaction data, and analyse volume trends to identify which channels customers prefer to access different services.

We ask customers visiting contact centres or company-owned retail stores to complete a net promoter score (NPS) survey. This gives us an NPS score that helps us measure customer loyalty, satisfaction and enthusiasm for Airtel Africa. The score also enables us to narrow down issues to process, store, or agent gaps. Our score rose from 31% in Q4'24 to 39% in Q4'25.

We also use customer satisfaction surveys when developing new products and services.

Board oversight

Our Board is kept informed of customer-focused matters through CEO and CFO reports, which provide insights at regional, country and sector levels.

Interests and concerns

Our customers continue to prioritise trust, convenience and reliability. They rely on the speed, uptime and accessibility of our network to use mobile money services. They also want to make sure their data and information is secure.

Affordability is also a key concern. Many customers continue to worry about increases in the cost of living. While they see telecoms as an essential service, people want to make data last longer and get as much value for their money as possible.

Outcome and actions

Putting customer experience at the heart of our refreshed strategy has further sharpened our focus on understanding customers’ needs. It has spurred a range of investments and improvements, not least our continued network coverage and distribution expansions. We’ve also enhanced our most important channel, MyAirtel app, including an ‘Airtel Lite’ application for customers with entry-level smartphones. MyAirtel app users have grown from 3.9 million in March 2024 to 7.1 million as of 31 March 2025.

To boost convenience and affordability, our priority has been ensuring that customers can easily access our bundle information at the point of purchase and check their balances on all self-service channels such as MyAirtel app, USSD and IVR. We also suggested ways for customers to manage their data through our successful #SmartaWithData campaign.

To empower Airtel Money customers we’ve introduced self-PIN management. This gives them options to manage their access on the go as well as transaction correction options if they accidently send money to the wrong destination. They can send money P2P across borders using our international money transfer (IMT) services.

We now have 166.1 million customers, including 44.6 million customers with Airtel Money mobile wallets. Customers have responded positively to our strategic initiatives, as shown by the 8% rise in our NPS score to 39% for Q4'25.

Our people

Our people are at the core of our business model and strategy. They help us create value in numerous ways, including by enhancing customer experience, delivering reliable and high-quality services, helping us drive innovation, and facilitating our partnerships.

Engaged, talented employees are a competitive advantage and contribute to our business resilience. Failing to engage and motivate employees would create risks around performance, recruitment and retention, which could impede our growth. So we’re focused on listening to our people and making Airtel Africa a great place to work for our 4,253 full-time permanent employees in 18 countries.

How we engaged during the year

We constantly look for formal and informal ways to better communicate and engage with all our employees, to understand their needs and views and ensure they feel valued, heard and motivated. This year we engaged in a range of ways.

Town halls

Our town halls at Group and OpCo level build unity, reinforce our purpose, and enable engagement with local teams to address collective issues. During town halls, employees can ask questions, make suggestions and raise concerns with senior leaders. Board members take part in town halls during OpCo visits.

  • Quarterly all-employee town halls at Group level allow leaders and independent non-executive directors to share business results, strategy and sustainability updates, people updates,  and concerns and questions on day-to-day business deliverables – feedback is reported to the Board
  • Quarterly OpCo town halls allow OpCo executive leadership to engage with all employees including sales executives and middle managers
  • The chair and independent non-executive directors hold special town halls when they visit headquarters or OpCos
  • Functional CEOs hold town halls with functions to share new ways of working and catch up with teams

One-to-one meetings

Senior Group and OpCo leaders meet directly with employees as part of our open-door policy. Managers also have one-to-one meetings with their direct reports to discuss business matters and employee concerns – these include:

  • Skip-level meetings with functional CEOs at OpCo level
  • High potential employees connecting with business leaders
  • Exit interviews to understand reasons for leaving

Employee feedback and idea sharing platforms

To develop our leaders, we ask for 360-degree feedback, including from direct reports and peers. This is then shared with each manager, their line manager and the HR team. 

Through our ‘my ideas’ platform we encourage our employees to submit innovative ideas to business problems promoting cross-functional collaboration.

Our employee engagement survey is conducted once every two years to understand workplace morale, identify areas of improvement and foster a positive work environment. Our 2024 survey achieved a 93% participation rate (2022: 91%).

Employee recognition and appreciation programme

We celebrate achievements through recognition programmes, such as quarterly town hall awards and our annual leadership conclave awards. Functional awards like the IT OpCo star club contest show OpCo-level recognition.

HR roadshows

We hold events to share information about benefits and policies and discuss questions from employees. These are held both in person and virtually each quarter and include HR directors and MDs in some OpCos.

Employee wellness initiatives

Each office has a medical provider visit for two days to carry out health checks and give advice to employees as needed. This is a mix of virtual and in person – for example, cancer awareness sessions are virtual while wellness check-ups are in person.

Business reviews

Our CEO and function heads visit OpCos regularly to engage with teams – they then raise issues and concerns as needed to our Group ExCo. In monthly business reviews, regional directors and our CEO discuss employee issues and the business health across functions and OpCos.

HIVE

Our in-house portal allows us to share policies, employee news, internal job postings, CEO addresses, CSR and business and brand news across the business.

Board oversight

For details of how the Board engaged with employees and was kept informed of their interests and concerns, see the focus on people and culture and our latest Sustainability Report at www.airtel.africa.

Interests and concerns

Key interests and concerns shared this year were:

  • Career growth – particularly opportunities to develop into leadership roles within and beyond OpCos
  • Learning and development – including access to training and opportunities to learn in different roles and locations
  • The cost of living – employees in some countries have been effected by socio-economic uncertainties such as socio-political disruption, inflation, higher taxation, and currency devaluations 
  • Community support – employees also frequently talk about their concerns for the communities in which they work. They want opportunities to support local people in areas such as education, health and disaster relief

Outcome and actions

Our CEO and leadership team, with the support of the Board, continue to see engagement with employees as a key enabler to attracting, developing, and retaining a highly skilled, diverse and engaged workforce – as well as to maintaining a high-performance culture.

The results of our 2024 employee engagement survey show an engagement score of 78%. Survey participants gave positive feedback on aspects of our culture including collaboration, diversity and customer focus. They also highlighted where more could be done – including career pathways, automation and employee empowerment.

This year, in addition to taking steps to cushion cost-of-living pressures through our annual salary review process and in-market initiatives, we strengthened our policies and programmes in a number of key areas important to employees.

  • Our defined performance and reward system includes an emphasis on promoting internally and giving people roles where they can grow their skills and capabilities.
  • We increased access to our Africa Mobility Programme, which recognises high-performing teams by sending them to different OpCos to share and enhance skills.
  • We began our Africa-India talent programme in January 2025 as part of our Global Talent Accelerator programme, giving six talented nominees the opportunity to develop their skills under the mentorship of Airtel India senior leaders.
  • In September 2024, we launched the Commercial Masterclass, a two-day workshop for frontline employees designed to strengthen ‘go-to-market’, network and leadership capabilities critical to drive results. More than 1,500 people have now completed this workshop.
  • We increased communications with employees through a focus on ‘Board connects’ and ‘Leadership connects’ – these include the town halls, one-to-one and open-door activities described above.
  • We empowered employees through greater digitalisation and improvements in our IT systems.

These measures add to our existing support frameworks such as employee health and wellbeing programmes, our employee assistance programme, and medical and life insurance. We continue to identify training needs through manager assessments and individual employee input. We also use performance review feedback to make sure people can develop the skills they need. Our learning and development provision includes our online learning platform, Percipio, in-person training, and cross-border and cross-functional training.

The Board’s focus on people and culture

Understanding our people

Our Board engages with employees in various ways to understand how we can enhance our people strategy and continue to bring our values to life. To explore the business at all levels, directors are encouraged to engage with local operations, either by visiting in person or through online meetings, strategy sessions and quarterly reports from our HR Committee. We arrange visits each year to operations, either individually or in small groups – and at least one Board meeting is scheduled to take place at a regional location with representatives from the business present. This year, our Board and committee programme once again took place in Dubai and was attended by many senior colleagues. This created opportunities for employees at all levels to discuss both professional and personal matters.

The Board stays on top of employee-related issues through:

  • Our open-door policy, where employees can connect directly with our CEO or any ExCo director about anything
  • Quarterly CEO-led town halls in English and French, where senior executives update employees on our business performance, organisational changes and take questions from employees
  • Remuneration Committee updates on remuneration, people, culture, conduct and diversity
  • Quarterly HR presentations to the Board on the progress of key HR projects, important talent acquisitions, project updates such as HR automation, and learning and development and performance management
  • Quarterly reports from the HR Forum and Remuneration Forum chair to the Remuneration Committee on people, culture and wellbeing
  • The results of our employee engagement survey and regular pulses shared in various OpCos and OpCo-led town halls
  • One-to-one meetings between our chair and ExCo members as well as ExCo and OpCo MDs and other leaders to discuss employee and personal wellbeing, team updates and career aspirations
  • Regular ExCo visits where leaders interact with teams at all levels of the business

Sunil Bharti Mittal is our designated Board director for employee engagement, given his regular travel to our operating companies. This year he visited Nigeria, where he was able to meet employees to discuss the company's strategy and operations, and the unique challenges and opportunities of serving Africa's most populous country.  Further engagement with leaders from across all Airtel Africa OpCos occurred at the annual Leadership Conclave and was an opportunity to discuss business strategy and growth, and answer questions regarding growth, workforce and the evolution of the telecoms sector in the age of AI and satellite communications. In this role, he is not expected to take on the responsibilities of an executive director or the chief HR officer.

He is responsible for supporting directors’ collective responsibility to consider a wide range of stakeholder perspectives when making Board decisions, including:

  • Understanding the concerns of the workforce and articulating their views and concerns in Board meetings
  • Ensuring that the Board, particularly executive directors, take appropriate steps to evaluate the impact of proposals and developments on the workforce
  • Where relevant and appropriate, providing feedback to the workforce on Board decisions and direction during the engagement process
  • Making sure that feedback Is gathered from all levels of the workforce in various locations

Each of our non-executive directors is invited to attend all quarterly employee town halls to hear feedback from employees and is encouraged to engage directly with employees when the opportunity arises. Feedback can then be shared immediately with the company secretary or chief HR officer, or with the Board at its next meeting. Independent non-executive directors also participate in the new Employee Connect sessions and report to the Board on their findings at the next meeting.

Employee Connect

Our independent non-executive directors met virtually with colleagues in East Africa (September 2024), Nigeria (February 2025) and Francophone Africa (April 2025). These conversations gave our employees another way of sharing their ideas and concerns directly with directors and enabled our Board members to take a ‘temperature check’ of employee concerns and interests. A wide range of topics were discussed including culture and the ‘I am Airtel’ initiative, cross-border employment opportunities, remuneration and benefits and gender balance. The  Board was updated on these matters by the attending directors at the next Board meeting, and this informed discussions on employee wellbeing and on how colleagues could be better supported, including how to assist those colleagues economically impacted by being in high inflationary or unstable currency jurisdictions.

The Board was pleased to note that there was a strong sense of pride generally expressed in working for Airtel Africa, and clear commitment to its future success.

Developing our people

To improve employee engagement, we encourage skills development through short-term assignments and exchanges between operating companies.

Our flagship Airtel Africa Mobility Programme is designed to support talent retention, development and succession planning by giving high potential and top-performing people exposure and learning opportunities through an accelerated career development programme. It allows employees from various operating companies to share and learn knowledge through long- and short-term global assignments. So far, 48 people have participated in this programme.

This year, notable Airtel Academy programmes included:

  • Executive Development Programme – an immersive senior leadership programme based on psychometric assessments followed by feedback and coaching sessions.
  • Women For Technology Programme (W4T) – a one-year programme targeting high-performing women employees in network, engineering and digital-related roles within the business.
  • Airtel Money & PSB Smart Cash – functional learning including dedicated fintech programs on crytography, payments and compliance - 6,000+ courses completed over 6,500+ hours by over 400+ employees. 
  • AIL (India) Elementary Academy – a one-year programme to equip finance assistant managers and senior executives with relevant skills.

Provision 41: engagement with the workforce

The Board is satisfied that we complied with Provision 41 of the Code during 2024/25.

As described, we engaged with employees on several issues, including remuneration, in a variety of ways. Through various types of meetings and engagement, our Board informs employees on executive remuneration and hears feedback. We continually seek to improve the Board’s dialogue with employees and review our approach regularly.

The topic of engaging with our people forms part of the chief HR officer’s report to each Board meeting. Copies of our Annual Report detailing the executive directors’ remuneration are widely shared and available for employees to see on our website.

During our annual strategy meeting and Q3'25 Board and committee meetings in Dubai, the Board met both formally and informally with our wider management team and other colleagues to field questions. A similar opportunity is offered to employees attending the Q&A session following quarterly Group-wide town hall meetings.

At the strategy meeting, the Board reviewed the results of the 2024 employee survey (which is conducted every other year) – particularly around employee engagement levels benchmarked against peers and how our values link to our purpose, vision and behaviour. In line with the insights gained from the employee survey, the Board identified several opportunities for developing employees including the creation of better environments for the sharing of Information and ideas, the encouragement of more non-financial rewards and recognition and the need to manage change more effectively. This directly informed the strategic discussions on talent management and the building and buying of talent, and the use of technology to drive work simplification and efficiency (digitalisation). The Board monitors the progress of actions taken through the CEO’s monthly reports and the quarterly people updates and presentations by our chief HR officer.

Monitoring and shaping our culture

We understand the importance of setting the right tone from the top. Our Board places great emphasis on making sure our company culture reflects and reinforces our strategy, purpose, vision and core values. As such, one of our key focus areas is to monitor and assess the culture across Airtel Africa.

We recognise that our culture must welcome every person’s unique contribution and, in doing so, celebrate diversity and inclusion in all its forms.

The Board monitors and assesses the culture of the Group in various ways. We meet with the ExCo and management, review the outcomes of employee surveys, engage directly with individual employees across the business, and listen to feedback from our stakeholders. The chair meets with every member of the ExCo during the year and is also the non-executive director responsible for employee engagement. He shares his findings at each Board meeting. Every engagement with our colleagues and other stakeholders is an opportunity for learning, and this informs the actions and decisions of the Board.

A closer look at…

Monitoring our culture

To meet their 2024/25 objectives of assessing and monitoring our culture and promoting the alignment of culture with our purpose, vision and core values and strategy, our Board participated in certain key activities during the year.

Engagement

The all-employee quarterly town halls allow employees to ask questions to Board members. Members of the Board attend voluntarily when they can, so that each director has a chance to hear directly from employees and employees hear from the CEO about what the Board is doing and considering

Insight

Wide-ranging insights at all levels of the business and a better understanding of sentiment and priorities for colleagues in their day-to-day operations

Outcome/actions

The Board takes employee views into consideration when making decisions, and each Board meeting generates wide-ranging exchanges of opinion based on insights gathered

Outputs from employee engagement sessions are also used to shape future Board agendas and employee updates

Engagement

Whistleblowing reports are reviewed and monitored for their effectiveness at every Audit and Risk Committee meeting, with onward reporting to the Board

Insight

A sense of concerning behaviours seen within the business so that these can be immediately addressed – for example, with training to raise awareness around sexual harassment

Insight into how the business has escalated and resolved concerns in the year

Outcome/actions

The Audit and Risk Committee will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the whistleblowing policy and report to the Board on how this supports the openness of Airtel Africa’s culture

Engagement

The Remuneration Committee reviews our wider workforce policies and practices, including gender and CEO pay, and integrates sustainability measures into short- and long-term incentive targets

Insight

How remuneration and remuneration targets can promote the right performance and behaviours, and the extent to which incentives and rewards are aligned with our culture

Outcome/actions

The Remuneration Committee will continue to report to the Board on colleague sentiment around workforce policies and practices

Engagement

The Nominations Committee regularly reviews senior leadership talent and succession planning

Insight

The importance of organisational culture in determining our strategic priorities and reviewing senior succession plans

Outcome/actions

The Board, Nominations and Remuneration Committees were engaged throughout the rigorous Executive Committee recruitment and selection process

Engagement

Through a review of Internal Audit reports, compliance reports, risk deep dives, incident reports and policies and training, our Board and committees are regularly updated on a broad range of risk, control and business integrity matters. These include fraud, compliance, bribery, corruption and modern slavery, and standard supplier policies

Insight

A broad understanding of practices and behaviours, and how these align with our purpose, vision, core values and strategy – this includes our supply chain partners

Outcome/actions

Appropriate scrutiny and challenge from the Board and its committees to management as well as assurance over our approach to managing risk and business integrity matters

Our communities

Our purpose of transforming lives can only be achieved by working closely with the communities in the 14 African countries where we live and do business. They provide our customer base and the talent pool for our employees, so are critical to our business performance. They’re also our neighbours and our partners in the sustainable development of their economies and societies through digitalisation and financial inclusion. We’re proud of the essential connection services we provide for communities – and helping them thrive is key to our own success. Positive community relationships help our market positioning and brand loyalty, and can help strengthen our social licence for our infrastructure investments. Conversely, failing to engage our communities or respond to their needs could risk damage to our reputation, the loss of goodwill, and missed business or sustainability opportunities which could hinder our growth.

How we engaged during the year

We actively engage with the communities we operate in as a fundamental part of how we run our business. We aim to make sure there is communication and understanding in both directions, and that we gather and respond to feedback. In 2024/25, our OpCos used various to make sure information was accessible to communities including face-to-face meetings, letters, emails, text messages, social media campaigns, and traditional media activity.

Our communities can contact OpCos and regional offices to share their interests and concerns over a range of channels, including phone, email and social media. We actively engage with governments and other organisations about community issues and initiatives, to get their input and feedback where useful.

Our people play an important role in engaging with communities. We provide both volunteering opportunities and company donations to support local people. Our corporate sustainability programme also brings us closer to communities through initiatives such as our partnership with UNICEF on education.

Board oversight

Each quarter, the Board is updated on community issues, requests and concerns, as well as progress in our community initiatives. The Board also receives regular reports from the CEO and sustainability team and presentations by regional and country management teams, who are closest to their communities.

Interests and concerns

The wide range and variety of circumstances in our 14 markets mean that our communities have diverse interests and concerns, some of which are very local, and some more widely shared. These include a strong desire for greater connectivity through increased network coverage, opportunities through digitalisation in areas like education and financial services, responsible business operations and support for environmental initiatives, and in some cases, disaster relief, including for climate-related emergencies.

Outcome and actions

We work with communities and governments across our markets to transform the lives of some of the most vulnerable people on the continent. The expansion of our network and distribution infrastructure and our investment in reliability and quality are strengthening access to essential communications and financial services across our communities.

We also continue to focus on increasing access to education to help bring lasting change in communities across Africa. Our partnership with UNICEF champions digital education through online platforms, connectivity and access to digital learning. 13 of our OpCos have launched initiatives in line with three pillars of this partnership:

  • Advocacy for education, especially among girls
  • Provision of tax-free access to government-approved educational websites and online platforms
  • Connecting schools to the internet free of charge

Where specific local needs arise, we also provide tailored support and solutions in areas like healthcare, disaster relief, and digital and financial inclusion. We support our employees in volunteering, and contribute to a range of corporate social responsibility initiatives. This year saw the launch of the Airtel Africa Foundation, which is focused on funding and implementing projects which enhance access to and usage of digital technologies, promote economic empowerment through financial services, expand access to quality education, and deliver sustainable environmental practices. See more in The Airtel Africa Foundation section.

We take a proactive approach to conserving our environment by ensuring that our products, operations and services are safe and have a minimal impact on the environment. We carry out environmental risk assessments across our business operations and have robust mitigation plans to address potential negative impacts that might affect communities in areas where we operate. We’re constantly improving our environmental management system to ensure our activities contribute as little as possible to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. This is integral to our sustainability strategy.

Partners and suppliers

We work with more than 2,600 suppliers across Africa, including mobile brands, IT companies and telecoms infrastructure providers – with the top 100 vendors and suppliers accounting for just over $2.3bn of our procurements. These relationships are essential for our operating model – for instance, by providing the core competencies for our networks, supporting the adoption of smartphones that enable growth in data usage, or enhancing data security for our customers and our business. They underpin our performance and help us deliver for our customers – and we’ve consistently focused on strengthening our supplier relationships on the basis of mutual benefit. Given the importance of suppliers in our value chain, they also have an important part to play in our sustainability ambitions. While we have mitigation plans in place to ensure a resilient supplier ecosystem, a failure to nurture new and existing relationships could have an adverse effect on our ability to deliver reliable services for customers or execute our sustainable growth strategy.

How we engaged during the year

We engage with partners and suppliers throughout the year, with engagement with top suppliers taking place at both Group and OpCo level. This includes governance meetings, commercial meetings and, where necessary, grievance meetings. Many engagements take place at our Group headquarters in Dubai, which is the base of operations for several large suppliers.

In addition, our senior leadership team engaged with a number of key suppliers at the MWC event in Barcelona in March 2025 and at the Capacity Middle East event in Dubai, in February 2025. These events bring together key ICT players from the Middle East and beyond representing carrier, cloud, peering, hyperscale, content, finance, edge, software, equipment, data centre and satellite industries.

Our Code of business ethics is applied to all partners and suppliers who work for or on behalf of Airtel Africa plc and its subsidiaries. We require our current partners and suppliers to adhere to this Code and strongly encourage suppliers to extend this recommendation to their own suppliers in the value chain.

Our third annual ESG self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ), conducted in early 2025, gave over 100 of our top vendors and suppliers the opportunity to share their progress and insights with us. This assessment, comprising 60 questions across four key ESG areas, has helped identify both strengths and gaps in supplier sustainability practices and allowed us to better understand ESG compliance across our supply chain.

In February 2025, we hosted our second annual ESG roundtable with our top tier partners, focusing on decarbonisation initiatives, health and safety and the findings from our ESG supplier questionnaire. Industry leaders shared information about their carbon reduction strategies. These knowledge-sharing sessions are instrumental in driving collective progress across our supply chain.

Board oversight

Our Board is kept informed about supply chain initiatives through the CEO’s monthly Board report and Board presentations from the chief supply chain officer and the sustainability team.

Interests and concerns

Partners and suppliers raised a number of interests and concerns in 2024/25. We engaged with them on issues including currency fluctuations and FX shortages in some markets, payment terms, technology, and ESG matters such as greenhouse gas emissions in our value chain.

Outcomes and actions

This year, we continued to discuss sales and project plans, bids and proposals, and ways to expand our collaboration to help suppliers take full advantage of developing technologies. We co-designed and planned important infrastructure projects, and reached agreements on payment terms that reflected higher operating costs caused by the macroeconomic volatility in some markets.

The ESG SAQ revealed key progress among our suppliers. On environmental metrics, we saw an increase in suppliers tracking greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and setting emission reduction target. In terms of social responsibility, we saw improvements in workplace policies, with an increase in anti-discrimination measures and health and safety audits. We also noticed a maturing of governance structures among our suppliers.

Airtel Africa is a member of the Joint Alliance for CSR (JAC). This is an association of telecoms operators aiming to verify, assess and develop ESG implementation across the manufacturing centres of the most important multinational suppliers. Members share resources and best practices, and collaborate to assess, verify and enhance labour standards, ethics, management systems, and health, safety, environmental practices across the supply chain. Over the past year, we’ve used insights gained from the alliance to strengthen our supplier onboarding process. Four Airtel Africa supplier site audits were completed by JAC members during the reporting period.

Governments and regulators

Our business model depends on providing telecoms and financial services, which are licensed and regulated in all 14 of our markets. Governments and regulators set out the policy and legal framework in which we operate based on their expectations and ambitions for the telecoms sector. Failure to comply with these frameworks could lead to sanctions, penalties, reputational damage and ultimately the loss of our licence to operate within a market. Whereas supporting the development ambitions of governments enables us to pursue growth. We engage closely with governments and regulators in all our markets, supporting their ambitions for digital and financial inclusion while working to create a viable business environment in which we can create shared value. This engagement helps us communicate effectively with the people who implement the policies, laws and regulations that affect our business.

How we engaged during the year

Our goal is to have two-way dialogue with governments and regulators. This allows us to understand their objectives and priorities, and to ensure they understand the impact that policy decisions have on the sector in the short, medium and long term.

Our stakeholder engagement plan gives broad guidance on who should engage with governments and regulators on behalf of the company, depending on the seriousness and materiality of the issue under discussion.

For serious and material issues, we rely on formal channels. This might involve us writing to a regulator or government department on an issue of concern or holding a formal minuted meeting.

Other engagement happens in various ways, including at informal government events, product launches and industry gatherings. We also engage through local industry associations and international industry associations, including the global telecoms association GSMA. Gopal Vittal, our non-executive director, is chair of the GSMA Board of directors until the end of 2026. The CEO and Board members often, as part of country visits, pay courtesy calls on government ministers and regulators to share Airtel Africa’s vision and to hear feedback on how the company is performing, areas that the company should focus on and any concerns around regulatory compliance.

Our Board continues to have a productive and open dialogue with regulatory bodies and policymakers and sets high standards of governance across our business. The Board has empowered the CEOs and chief regulatory officers of our operating companies to represent them at country level with governments and regulators. Management also informs the Board about regulatory developments in the markets each month. From time to time, we also commission audits to verify levels of regulatory compliance.

Board oversight

Regulatory issues pose both opportunities and threats to our business. To manage these issues, the Board relies on a number of governance processes to guide directors in determining issues that require focused attention.

Our chief regulatory officer reports monthly to the Board on material regulatory developments across our markets via the CEO’s monthly update. Materiality is determined by the focus of the Board, a value or financial impact of $1m or more, and potential impact on our business reputation. The Board is also updated on regulatory developments when needed by the Regulatory Committee, our Group company secretary, regional directors and other subject matter experts.

The Regulatory Committee evaluates and addresses all political, legal, regulatory and policy risks faced by the business at both Group and OpCo levels and determines whether additional mitigation is necessary beyond standard regulatory operations. Paul Arkwright chairs the committee which includes our CRO and the regional directors of our Francophone Africa, East Africa and Nigeria businesses. The committee meets every two months and is updated by our CRO on regulatory developments and stakeholder engagements to inform our approach.

Interests and concerns

This year, governments and regulators showed a particular interest in:

  • Compliance with laws and regulations and licence terms and conditions, with a particular focus on Know your client (KYC) and Quality of service (QoS) regulations.
  • Revenue collection and tax compliance, and national security.

Governments continue to focus on extending digital inclusion. They encourage all operators to meet the obligations in their licences by addressing coverage gaps and ensuring that rural, underserved and unserved populations have access to telecoms and mobile financial services. Regulators continue to make spectrum available to operators to help them offer high speed data services and increase broadband penetration.

Regulators have also continued to license mobile financial and fintech services. Central banks have been very supportive of our Airtel Money separation. This reinforces their belief that the mobile financial services business will be adequately financed and able to offer financial services to the unbanked.

Outcomes and actions

We continue to comply with laws and regulations and to meet our tax obligations, being recognised as one of the largest taxpayers in most of our markets. At the same time, we seek to show governments that their societies benefit from the shared value we create wherever we operate and advocate equitable taxation across all sectors of the economy.

We ensure that all our activities are properly licensed and use our compliance management system to make sure all our operations comply with licence obligations. We closely monitor compliance with KYC and AML requirements, which are a special focus area for governments fighting terrorism, money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Our enhanced Compliance Management Programme helps management identify areas of non-compliance early enough to make corrections before the regulator intervenes. In 2024/25 we further strengthened our KYC compliance by investing in digital tools, and enhanced training and enforcement for sales agents.

We monitor the quality of our network to make sure it meets regulators’ quality of service standards, and that their citizens enjoy affordable coverage and a reliable service.

Airtel Africa continued to work with governments and non-profit partners like UNICEF to contribute to national and regional policies and programmes, co-create interventions and collective development. In this reporting period, advocacy and information-sharing aligned with national education priorities led to the adoption of the draft law on the digitisation of education in Gabon, contributions to the new national policy on digital learning in Tanzania, and the launch of the digital agenda strategy of Uganda. Airtel Tanzania also signed an memorandum of understanding with two ministerial level entities responsible for education in Tanzania - with UNICEF, launched the Smart Wasomi initiative to scale digital inclusion interventions in schools.

In December 2024, our CEO Sunil Taldar met with Etleva Kadilli, regional director for UNICEF in Eastern and Southern Africa and agreed on the need to work together to galvanise more support from additional partners and private sector entities to increase access to digital tools for learning and digital skills for children and young people in Africa.

During his visit to the President of Nigeria in February 2025, our chair, Sunil Bharti Mittal promised to support the 3 Million Technical Talents (3MTT) programme with naira 1 billion (₦1B), in line with our mission to propel socio-economic development through education and digital inclusion. This ₦1B partnership with the 3MTT programme will help 25,000 young Nigerians acquire market-ready technical skills, contributing to Nigeria’s goal of building a robust digital economy.

On 20 January 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) granted approval for tariff adjustments after requests from the telecoms operators in Nigeria in response to the prevailing market conditions. The adjustments are capped at a maximum of 50% of current tariffs, with requests reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the NCC.

Shareholders 

Through their investments, our shareholders enable us to deliver our strategy and create long-term value for all stakeholders. Their capital enables our own investment in infrastructure, innovation and people, which in turn drives our sustainable growth and supports our purpose of transforming lives. Gaining and maintaining the trust of shareholders is therefore essential to our operating model. Any loss of that trust and credibility would undermine our ability to invest for growth and, ultimately, prevent us from doing business.

How we engaged during the year

In 2024/25, as part of a proactive engagement programme organised by our investor relations team, we engaged shareholders through a mix of group meetings and one-to-one conversations and sought further feedback from sell-side analysts and corporate brokers.

Our investor relations team maintains a two-way dialogue between the investment community and Group management, executives and the Board. At the same time, we keep a range of channels open for communication, including this Annual Report, our Sustainability Report and:

  • Detailed quarterly financial statements and press releases with key financial and operational updates
  • Live conference calls and presentations held at each quarterly results announcement
  • Ad hoc shareholder and prospective shareholder meetings and calls
  • Virtual and in-person investor conferences to engage with existing and prospective shareholders
  • Proactive engagement with sell-side equity research community
  • Our virtual and in-person AGM, giving shareholders the opportunity to engage with our Board
  • Corporate website updates for investors to access investor-specific information on financial, operating and sustainability issues affecting Airtel Africa, including updates on key policies to enhance ESG ratings

Board oversight

The Board receives a detailed report on shareholder engagement, interests and concerns every month. This also includes:

  • Share price performance and current valuation multiples. The performance of our shares and the company’s valuation is compared to our industry peers to create an understanding of relative performance
  • A detailed analysis of consensus expectations to ascertain the overall trend
  • An update on the composition of the shareholder register, with a focus on key buyers and sellers over the last month
  • An update on research published by sell-side analysts

Corporate brokers also regularly give presentations to the Board.

The CEO, CFO and head of investor relations meet regularly with institutional investors to discuss strategic issues and to make presentations on our results.

Committee chairs are also available to engage with major shareholders regarding their areas of responsibility. Non-executive directors develop an understanding of the views of major shareholders through regular updates from the head of investor relations and external advisers.

Interests and concerns

Our shareholders’ priorities in 2024/25 included:

  • Our growth outlook. Investors continue to be concerned about the potential impact on our revenue of challenging macroeconomic environments and consumer cost-of-living pressures due to inflation. Before sector-wide regulatory approvals to adjust tariffs were granted in Nigeria in January 2025, investors expressed concerns about that market in particular.
  • EBITDA margin improvements. Investors remain interested in profitability in the context of FX headwinds and inflation in some markets, with specific reference to fuel prices and devaluation of the naira.
  • Reducing exposure to FX volatility. As in previous years, investors were concerned about our exposure to FX volatility across our markets, particularly in Nigeria.
  • Shareholder returns. Shareholders told us that they are comfortable with our existing progressive dividend policy, but some suggested that a new buy-back would strengthen returns further.
  • IPO of Airtel Money. Investors were interested in our progress towards the IPO of Airtel Money which we aimed to explore following the investment from minority investors into Airtel Money in 2021.
  • Sustainability. Investors are increasingly interested in our sustainability commitments. During the year we saw improved ESG ratings, reflecting continued success in financial and digital inclusion, the publication of our ‘Journey to a net zero future’, and increased transparency around our policies.

Investors raised a number of other issues at times throughout the year. These included:

  • Our leverage, which increased after the renewal of our tower contract with ATC in September 2024
  • Whether our strategy would change in light of changes in our senior management, the appointment of our CEO and our CFO’s planned retirement
  • Gender balance across the Group and at Board level

Outcomes and actions

Our Board is kept well informed of the views of shareholders and is able to take them into account when taking major strategic and operational decisions. This year we:

  • Approved a share buy-back of up to $100m in December 2024 as part of continuing to upstream cash from OpCos to support shareholder returns
  • Actively engaged with shareholders and analysts around progress on derisking our balance sheet and reducing our exposure to currency weakness. This included paying down all HoldCo debt, migrating further OpCo debt to local currency level, and an additional APM which focused on ‘lease-adjusted leverage’ to reflect the financial position in relation to our new ATC lease
  • Communicated the demand for our telecoms and mobile money services across our 14 markets as reflected in resilient revenue growth trends despite the challenging macro environment, highlighting that we’re not reliant on any single market for growth
  • Highlighted our ability to sustain growth at a high level (to limit FX pressures), by offering affordable services to customers without relying on price increases to fuel growth
  • Communicated our refined growth strategy which reinforces our focus on the customer experience while maintaining overall consistency with our previous, proven strategy, underlining continuity in management’s approach
  • Acknowledged the need to keep addressing challenges around gender diversity in our operating areas while communicating progress, including the fact that 43.2% of all senior appointments were women in H2 2024/25.
  • See more in our financial review

Media

Print, broadcast and online media remain trusted and authoritative sources which can inform and influence all our stakeholders. Engaging actively and transparently with the media supports our business model by creating opportunities to reach customers, highlight our work in promoting digital and financial inclusion, and build and protect stakeholders’ trust. Conversely, failing to engage fully with the media could lead to missed opportunities and undermine market position and sentiment.

How we engaged during the year

We have strong relationships with individual journalists and their media organisations at Group and OpCo levels.

We build and nurture these long-term, mutually beneficial relationships in a range of ways, including by sharing announcements and updates, conducting regular briefings, hosting media roundtables, providing media toolkits and organising tours to showcase our work and initiatives. We also share insights on the industry, making us a ‘go to’ source for journalists needing authoritative content from trusted spokespeople. We regularly update the Media Centre on our website with our latest news so that journalists can quickly and easily access relevant information.

The Media Centre also has a feedback facility, and we use this to understand media interests and concerns. We also hold one-to-one sessions with journalists to gather feedback on our engagement, identify their priorities and understand how we can better support their reporting needs.

Board oversight

Media feedback and coverage results are shared on a regular basis with the Board.

Interests and concerns

The media focused this year on the progress and impact of our initiatives, financial performance, innovation and strategy. Our landmark partnership with UNICEF continued to garner significant media traction across Africa. Media representatives continued to express interest in one-to-one briefings and sector insights.

Outcomes and actions

In light of feedback from journalists, this year we introduced quarterly media roundtables in each market to build on our communications strategy, which focuses on corporate and leadership profiling and creating compelling sustainability narratives.

For example, our campaign to mark World Teachers Day helped communicate the work being done by our landmark UNICEF partnership. This generated 40 pieces of coverage across our markets and amplified the impact of providing access to digital education to millions of children in Africa.

NGOs

NGOs are important partners for us as we work to transform lives, bringing their grassroots expertise to help us deliver positive change, and helping build trust among other stakeholders. Engaging with NGOs helps us identify issues, build partnerships and co-create sustainability programmes.

How we engaged during the year

Most engagement with NGOs takes place at OpCo level, through regular meetings, communications and events. NGOs also approach Airtel Africa by writing to OpCo managing directors requesting sponsorship or a contribution to a particular project. This is then followed up by the relevant OpCo.

We deepened our collaboration with UNICEF at both regional and country levels, working closely to track progress and refine implementation strategies. This strengthened partnership led to greater clarity around roles and expected outcomes, operational efficiencies and enhanced performance in this reporting period.

Board oversight

Our Board is kept informed of NGO matters by country through CEO and CFO reports and the quarterly Board sustainability report. These allow the Board to understand the interests and priorities of NGOs, the benefits and opportunities the relationship provides, and our ongoing engagement activities.

Interests and concerns

The priorities of the NGOs we work with are focused on our broad area of collaboration, including digital education, environmental conservation and empowerment.

Outcomes and actions

There are no specific actions to report this year, but we continue to monitor outcomes.