805 sellers get loan from Jumia as firm unveils sustainability report

IN 2021, 805 unique sellers received loans through Jumia Lending, representing a 27 per cent increase in the number of sellers compared to 2020.

According to Jumia, the average loan size was $ 2,217, where some of the sellers, who are small medium enterprises ( SMES), often find it difficult to access loans in Africa.

Jumia revealed this in its first Environmental Social Governance ( ESG) report, which is part of the Sustainability Report 2021. It was recently unveiled at a virtual media briefing. The ecommerce firm, which said the small businesses lack collateral and the types of traditional financial history banks require to extend loans to them, noted “for this reason, they are predominantly excluded from accessing working capital loans to grow their businesses. With Jumia Lending, we are solving this problem by connecting sellers to lenders through our platform.”

The firm disclosed that it reduces reverse shipments by allowing certain qualifying customers to keep certain items they wish to return and still give them a refund.

“Through this initiative, we avoided shipping 16,800 and 28,000 packages in 2020 and 2021 respectively. This is the equivalent of 5.2 tons and 6.6 tons of Co2 avoided respectively,” it stated.

The report draws on Jumia’s 2021 non- financial data and provides disclosures in line with Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ( SASB) materiality topics for e- commerce entities as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals ( UN SDGS). While recognising the importance of standard ESG focus areas, Jumia draws attention to the role that ecommerce plays in advancing more equal opportunities in Africa.

As such, the company said it has made its mission, “Leveraging technology to improve everyday lives in Africa,” the first pillar of its sustainability strategy.