The Tony Elumelu Foundation has funded over 700 healthcare entrepreneurs across Africa with a gender distribution ratio of 49 percent male to 51 percent female.
Mr. Tony O. Elumelu, the Chairman United Bank for Africa Group & Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation disclosed this during his remarks at the Abu Dhabi Health Forum Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates on Monday.
He said, “entrepreneurs have gone on to help communities and even their countries in advancing health care delivery in Africa.”
He said he invests in healthcare businesses in Africa because he sees the daily challenges – and opportunities. “We run clinics and one of the largest HMOs in Nigeria. We democratize access to healthcare” he indicated.
“I am also a philanthropist – my foundation is the largest dedicated supporter of young entrepreneurs in Africa – and as you may know, we invest, train, and network healthcare entrepreneurs across Africa” he noted.
Mr. Elumelu indicated that his focus is improvements and equality in healthcare, leveraging the power of entrepreneurship, innovation, and working across sectors to make a difference.
“We all i.e. private and public sectors and the development world need to prioritize appropriate capital allocation and investments in innovation (health research and health technology / IT) to drive global improvements in health outcomes — across Africa” he emphasized.
He would advocate that even beyond pharma, the same steps should be taken to open up access to medical device research and manufacturing, healthcare business model innovation, and so on.
“Energy deficit and Healthcare Delivery: We need to work innovatively across social sectors to achieve results. A high percent of health care facilities in Africa do not have www.tonyelumelufoundation.org 4 reliable power supply (I think it’s around 40%) — without power, the health outcomes will be low” he stated.
On climate change and healthcare delivery, he spoke of the link between renewable energy and healthcare, saying the two are also linked via climate change.
“We hear so much about available climate financing for renewable energy projects, as well as climate change adaptation and resilience projects — but what about unlocking climate funding for healthcare delivery as well — particularly on the margins where climate change is leading to new diseases, or diseases appearing in place they were not seen before. As healthcare issues are becoming more severe due to climate change, how can climate funds be accessed to address healthcare as well? With private sector innovation, startup funding from foundations and financial institutions, health care policies from national and global health systems, investments from all as well as cross-sector collaboration, we can move humanity forward” he noted.
Mr. Elumelu further stated that we have significant imbalances in the quality of health outcomes, excessive investments in R&D in pharma, medical devices, and practices for health conditions in rich countries, while poor countries miss out.
“But the quality of healthcare in the world’s poorest countries, can have an impact on the richest countries — the world is interconnected, and climate change is making transmission happen faster. Covid started in China and quickly spread to all parts of the world. The lesson here is that we should be interested in global health equity and not just national heath because poor health outcomes affect all everywhere” he emphasised.
Speaking frankly, he said “Africa is behind, with limited budgets and poor healthcare infrastructure.”
