Etisalat highlights its corporate social and environmental responsibility at Corporate Social Responsibility Summit

The summit witnessed the participation of a large number of senior executives and officials representing many regional and international companies and organizations, presenting numerous presentations from experts covering topics such as their own CSR experiences, how this concept is steadily gaining ground, its importance in raising the profile of companies in their markets, the future of CSR, and many more related subjects.

Etisalat's Vice President of Corporate Communications, Ahmed Bin Ali, today affirmed that Etisalat is an active participant in socially responsible projects.

Bin Ali highlighted Etisalat's sponsorship programs of various social, cultural and educational events in the UAE.

'One of our objectives at Etisalat is to help fulfill the potential of our nation and its people. To be a catalyst driving growth, developing a world-class economy and a hub for trade, tourism and entrepreneurship,' said Bin Ali. 'We do this in many ways, through our technical expertise in the development of a fully connected community, but also through our many CSR initiatives. This is work that we can be proud of, and which our customers, partners and other stakeholders should be proud to be working with us to achieve.'

He added: 'Etisalat is determined to offer continuous support to people with special needs by helping them to communicate with family, friends, social centers, government organizations, universities, and many other organizations. We currently offer the 'Freedom Package' which serves people with special needs and was launched and designed specifically for them to be used to enhance their communication options.'

It's a well known fact that Etisalat has continuously supported people with special needs with its continues support for events and activities such as Dubai Centre for Special Needs- Phone System, People with special needs Centre, Wedding Ceremony for Special Needs People, and Deaf Week.

Bin Ali also demonstrated during his presentation Etisalat's environment-friendly initiatives such as electronic payments and payment through the mobile as well as credit transfer services which do not require paper-driven processes. Also, Etisalat's participation in several Environment projects and initiatives such as the Envirophone initiative that witnessed the opening of hundreds of collection points for old mobile phones to reduce the effect of their waste on the environment.

'Etisalat is committed to launching creative initiatives to enable the development of the local communities. Etisalat is contributing 1% of annual revenues to support innovation and entrepreneurship through the ICT Fund,' added Bin Ali.

Bin Ali also highlighted Etisalat's dynamic role in the society along with it's concern for developing the human capital inside and outside the UAE pointing at the significant role of Etisalat Academy in implementing the EasyLearning initiative, a program run under the sponsorship of UN-G77, which works for the development and qualification of professional candidates in more than 134 countries. The Etisalat Academy is the exclusive distributor of the program in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ahmed Bin Ali concluded his presentation and said 'As a leading UAE company, we are committed to be key contributor to CSR activities and we always seek to create strategic partnerships with different social organizations to help them develop. We will maintain our role in social activities, which makes from the company an example for other organizations to emulate.'