Tony Elumelu Foundation, the foundation making the most impacts in promoting entrepreneurship in Africa, reducing poverty and unemployment in the process is set to empower new sets of African entrepreneurs.
The newest cohort has at least of 3,200 young African entrepreneurs selected for this year’s TEF Entrepreneurship Programmes.
Briefing African journalists on Friday virtually, Somachi Chris-Asoluka CEO Tony Elumelu Foundation, said since inception, TEF has empowered over 2.5 million young Africans with access to business management training on our proprietary digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed over US$100 million in seed capital to more than 24,000 selected entrepreneurs on the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.
Collectively, she revealed these entrepreneurs have generated $4.2 billion in revenue and created more than 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs. Through our support for African entrepreneurs, TEF has lifted 2.1 million Africans above the poverty line, and positively impacted more than 4 million African households, with 46% of supported entrepreneurs being African women.
She noted that Tony Elumelu Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector and, most importantly, entrepreneurs as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.
According to her, TEF’s ability to fund, train, mentor, and network young African entrepreneurs has created a unique platform for catalysing growth across the African continent. The robust ability of the Foundation to reach entrepreneurs across geographies and sectors has enabled it to conduct innovative partnerships with the European Union (EU), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United States Government via the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), The French Development Agency (AFD), The German Development Finance Institution (DEG), The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), The African Development Bank (AfDB), Google, UNICEF Generation Unlimited (GenU), IKEA Foundation, the UAE Office of Development Affairs and Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation (an affiliate of Erth Zayed), and others, with bespoke programmes including targeting female empowerment and growth in fragile states.
