Letter from Our Chairman

Ladies & Gentlemen at The UNITED NATIONS GLOBAL COMPACT
Ref: Statement of Continued Support

In this First Communication on Progress to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), we discuss our progress against our adaptation to the Ten Principles and our integration process into our corporate goals during fiscal (October 1, 2015–October 31, 2016).
Fast Telecom Group’s mission is to provide superior financial and distributary services for the MENA region micro and small businesses. We focus on large and small business because this sector is vital for the development and diversification of the Middle East economy, the creation of jobs and the elimination of poverty. In its 20 of operations, Fast Telecom Group has provided financing to more than 5000 micro and small businesses while also offering savings options and other products to those traditionally underserved by our sector.
It’s with great honor that we inform you that Fast Telecom Group continues the commitment made in 2015, and we reaffirm our intention & support of the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in Human Rights, Labor, Environment and Anti-Corruption. And we herewith reaffirm to make further progress in implementing the ten principles of the Global Compact, through the actions we are planning to take to further support this great human initiative. Through submitting this communication document, we express our intent to support and implement these principles within our sphere of influence, integrate them into our business strategy, corporate culture, and our daily operations. In parallel, we also commit to promptly inform and share this information and our commitment with all internal & external stakeholders and the public in general.In this regard, it is noteworthy that this year, we have worked on awareness of employees and implemented several initiatives aimed at ensuring the effective installation of the Principles in day to day business. Addressing Environmental Impacts Our strategy to foster environmentally sustainable growth for Fast Telecom Group and our stakeholders comprises four areas: efficient operations, working sustainably, provide insights to advance sustainability within our area of influence.
Our environmental footprint consists primarily of carbon emissions generated from our distribution networks around the Mena region, international cargo transport and our day to day business operations. We have been steadfast in addressing all as we continue to improve our environmental impact & performance. This is happening through working closely with our regional network of employees, clients and suppliers. We are on a relentless journey toward more sustainable operations and a smaller
environmental footprint.
We remain focused on improving our performance and have a new target: by the end of 2017, we plan to reduce our per employee carbon emissions 35 percent and our per mobile sold & distributed against our current baseline. Additionally, across our locations, we invest in energy management and resource-conservation programs including optimizing our operations, and procuring office consumables from renewable sources.

Yours Sincerely,

Ali Salem
Chairman & CEO
Fast Telecom Group

Our Commitment:
Fast Telecom Group’s commitment to protecting
Human Rights spans how we treat our employees, our expectations of our suppliers and how we make a sustainable impact within the region, within the communities where we live and operate.

The commitment, respect and protection of Human Rights are at the heart of our corporate shared values & principles. Our commitment is protected by our Code of Business conduct and is well established within our Human Resources Manual and our business policies, including those that address data privacy, and the procurement and sales of goods and services. Our commitment includes the protection and the health and safety of our employees, vendors, customers and our communities. As such, we continue to maintain ISO 9001:2008 certificate, which validates our commitment to the Health, Safety of our people. In parallel, we are strengthening our health and safety policy on a regional level and we have enforced this policy by a direct support from our board of directors. Beyond our employees and our own operations, our commitment to protecting human rights is also rooted in the expectations we have of our suppliers. In 2017, we aim at including our Supplier Standards of Conduct within our new Procurement-issued supplier agreements, which supplement our corporate values and incorporate the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), including human rights.

We at Fast Telecom Group do not tolerate harassment or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability or other traits that have no bearing on performance. Nor does the Company tolerate retaliation against any employee who complains of improper harassment or discrimination.
Complaints of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation are enforced by our business code of conduct and hence, handled promptly and thoroughly, and they will be handled confidentially as law and policy permit.

Gender Equality as a Human Right
Gender equality is an important focus for Fast Telecom Group; we believe that increasing the opportunities for women to succeed economically is one of the most powerful ways to promote human rights, economy resilience and society stability.

We have decided on internal guidelines for achieving greater involvement of women within our business functions and operations throughout our entire supply chains. Some of which are: purchasing from women-owned and women-controlled enterprises in categories Including; training, human resources and professional services, and supplies vendors. Results and outcomes will have their own space within our report for fiscal 2017.

Protecting our People and other stakeholders:
Health and Safety within our Operations

Ensuring the health and safety of our employees and other business stakeholders represents an important aspect of our commitment to human rights. We have developed internal policies and standards for safety and security systems that are used on a regional level. Besides, In light of our continued growth within our region, we are concentrating on standardizing our supply chain and operations processes. This involves, among other initiatives, strengthening our monitoring and measuring to promote the early identification of risks to eventually eliminate them and have a risk free work environment.

Supply Chain
As part of our vendor selection process, we include sustainability and include questions in our requests for proposal. We will then focus our attention on expanding the scope and depth of these questions to help us better select vendors whose environmental, and ethical business practices align with ours. This would be an ongoing efforts that will never stop to make sure vendors and other stakeholders are well oriented about the Ten Principles of the UNGC and they adopt and integrate them within their operations.

Our Commitment:
Fast Telecom Group ongoing commitment to maintaining labour standards including freedom of association; elimination of forced labour, compulsory and child labor; and elimination of discrimination is embedded in how we build relationships with our employees and other stakeholders including vendors. It reflects our core values, especially Respect for the individual integrity. Our commitment is also expressed clearly in our code of business ethics within our main human resource manual to emphasize diversity, sense of belonging, teamwork and respect.
We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment in accordance with the equal pay, sex & race discrimination, and disability discrimination. It is the Company’s policy that all employees and applicants will receive fair employment opportunities and that there will be no discrimination between individuals on the grounds of race, religion, color, nationality, ethnic or national origin, gender, marital status, responsibility for dependents, working hours, disability or age.
Our Supplier Selection Standards policies also addresses our commitment across our business operations and supply chain to reinforces our labor standards and antidiscrimination commitment. Fast Telecom Group also complies with local labour laws applicable to its relationship with its employees across the whole MENA region.
Lastly, we support the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Women’s Empowerment Principles, which help the private sector promotes gender equality within the workplace, marketplace and the surrounding community.

Promoting High Labor Standards:
Our Human Capital and the skills, abilities and knowledge they possess are at the core of our business. Our goal is to have the right calibers, in the right places, to support the needs of our clients and drive our future growth.
The diversity of our people is part of what makes Fast Telecom Group extraordinary. Combining our employees’ diverse talents and backgrounds with our common values and methodologies is a powerful competitive differentiator within our regional markets.
In Fast Telecom Group, we take violations of our anti-discrimination policies seriously. Fast Telecom Group has employee relations teams across our geographies
responsible for addressing most complaints. In addition, our global investigations team investigates suspected violations reported from different channels.

In Fast Telecom, training is one of the most effective ways we make diversity part of our corporate culture.
In this year, 2016, we expanded our support to better support our blue-collar employees progress in their career and to help raise our work ethics and corporate social equality giving the change to lots of people excel and raise their educational bar and hence achieve self-confidence, higher level of education and therefore, a better future for themselves and families.

Additionally, in 2016 we established an internal Excellence Awards program to recognize outstanding performances and initiatives from across our geographies. We have started this program within our headquarter and now expanding it to cover all our operations within MENA region. the prime objective is to reward achievers and differentiate great performances.

Women at Fast Telecom Group:
We are committed to supporting females professional and help them achieve their professional goals and aspirations. Our support takes many forms, including training, mentoring and empowering through decision making motivational positions.

Enforcing Fair Labor Standards Within our Supply Chain
Just as Fast Telecom holds its entire organization accountable to high standards of labor standards, we demand the same of our partners. Within our supply chain, we are committed to eliminating discrimination in our choice of vendors and other service providers. We expect our partners to comply with our labor standards which incorporate our core values and the UNGC’s 10 principles, including human rights and eliminating forced labor, child labor and discrimination in the workplace.

Our Commitment:
At Fast Telecom Group, our efforts to ensure sustainable growth covers our entire regional operations, from how we conduct our business to the products and services we provide our clients, to how we engage with our employees and vendors. It is at the heart of our Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, which comprises four main areas: efficient operations; working responsibly & sustainably; and providing insights to all stakeholders to advance sustainability. Fast Telecom is committed to operating a safe and healthy work environment. Each employee is responsible for compliance with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations for the country in which they work. To further ensure a healthy and safe work environment, Fast Telecom will not tolerate the presence of any types of weapons, drugs, alcohol or any other such items that might create an unsafe workplace environment. Besides, we will implement new software, technologies and database to reduce the use of papers.
Environmental policies are engrained in our Code of Conduct and our core business values. These inform our Environmental Responsibility Policy, which we established in 2016, and would be reviewed review annually. Responsibility and accountability for our environmental strategy starts with our Chairman & CEO and cascades down, to all our business functions and operations throughout the entire MENA region operations and to their respective managers, teams, and other stakeholders.

Efficient Regional Supply Chain Operations
Environmentally friendly practices will Leads the way we conduct our business across the MENA region and will actively manage and monitor our conservation initiatives, energy, waste, and CO2 emissions management practices. Because more than 80 percent of our environmental footprint consists of carbon emissions generated from our distribution channels, air cargo and transportation, we are committed to addressing both during 2017 as we work to improve our environmental performance so we can achieve massive reduction in CO2 emissions across the whole supply chain operation and distribution network. As we strive to improve the sustainability of our own supply chain operations, Fast Telecom Group will also seek to use our knowledge, expertise to encourage our suppliers & vendors to adopt sustainability efforts.

Energy Management
In all Fast Telecom Group logistics centers and offices, we proactively manage energy usage and hence to reduce our use of office electricity, we will set a strategy that can be adopted by all our people and therefore be implemented on ASAP basis.

Working Sustainably!
We will adopt a sustainable work policy which promotes good practices that have a positive impact on the environmental and on the health and safety of our communities and stakeholders. It will help reduce our Co2 footprint as we will re-design and manage our distribution networks to reduce emissions and monitor the driving behavior of our drivers to reduce emissions and achieve 100% safety driving, reduce accidents and make sure we are community friendly across all regional operations. We will implement a new technology during 2017 to monitor and measure performance and provide all stakeholders with trainings required to achieve this target. Additionally, this will make it easier for our people to understand our distribution network related carbon impact by providing a monthly reports on their performance and how we can take the initiative to have greener supply chain behaviors. Further, our regional and local offices will develop programs & initiative aimed at decreasing carbon emissions through alternative work practices and arrangements, such route optimizing, Data aggregation, warehouse storage optimization and the like.
We will also encourage our people to help make a difference. Our HR dept will design Environmentally friendly prices and grant monthly to the best practice initiated. We will promote and encourage creative & innovative approaches towards more eco-friendly environment. The HQ office will then support those efforts to adopt them across all local offices and logistics centers and drive their adoption across our geographies.

Providing Insights to advance Sustainability
We will strive and do our level best to contribute at all times to the overall environmental agenda, helping to gain insight into issues and working with other local & global businesses and organizations on solutions that will help make the world a better place.

Our Commitment:
Fast Telecom Group is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards and to complying with all
anticorruption laws where we operate across the whole MENA region. To this aim and as reflected in our internal policies, we have zero tolerance for bribery or any other activity that violates the anticorruption laws in any place we do business. We believe that bribery and corruption damages our company’s reputation and undermines its relationship with its suppliers & customers, business partners and also competitors. It may lead to criminal prosecution of or regulatory action against a company or its employees, resulting in the imposition of criminal or civil penalties, including fines and imprisonment, and could damage a company’s business. Hence and therefore, Fast Telecom Group strictly prohibits any form of bribery or corruption. We believe that operating ethically and in compliance with all the local laws is not only the responsible thing to do, but is a key component to success and promote a healthy work place. It’s very critical to Fast Telecom Group to act responsibly and play a role model with our industry for other to follow. We aim at helping our clients meet their own business and performance objectives through the adoption of high business and ethics standards.

Empowering Our Business & Employees
Our ethics and anti-corruption policy is very well articulated within our employee manual. And all employees are requested to understand and comply with when they perform their daily tasks and during interactions with one-another or with external stakeholders.
We, at Fast Telecom believe in our people and we rely on them to live our core values and principles every day, in every interaction with each other, with our customers, vendors, and our other internal and external stakeholders.

Monitoring, Measuring, Reporting and Response
Monitoring business practices and implementation are integral to our business and to our target of zero tolerance policy. We continuously encourage reporting of possible violations or any good faith claim about Fast Telecom financial matters, accounting performs, internal accounting controls, corruption or fraud, or other serious matters where the vital interest of the company or the moral or physical integrity of our people are at stake.