ON INSURANCE:

“When phone use started, we had about 60,000 land phones but today approximately, 154 million Nigerians now have internet access, and it is only a matter of time for insurance to take its rightful space in our economy. It takes people like myself to show interest in the sector to revitalise the sector.

Insurance is critical in the wider financial intermediation space and Nigeria can use this to further national savings mobilization and economic activities. We make investments that create jobs and improve social welfare as Africapitalists .

When we tried to take over a distressed bank in 1997, it was very unpopular, but we were able to turn it around in record time. Subsequently, others have decided to take risks for themselves.

We bring this attitude to the insurance space – bringing what we know how to do, prioritising customers and using digital mediums to drive business, we think we can rekindle public interest in the insurance space.”

ON HOSPITALITY:

“As explained by the National Bureau of Statistics, for the first time in a while inflation is dropping. The GDP of Nigeria is now going up from being negative. Business sectors are slowly picking up, in our hospitality business, Transcorp Hotels, for example, occupancy was as low at 20% last year but has risen and is now between 60-80% on a daily which was rare even before the pandemic.

Once Leadership can deal with the challenges of security, things will continue to improve. The pandemic was bad but African leaders are beginning to have a grip on how to address macroeconomic policies that can have impact on their countries.”

ON POWER:

“We have an investment philosophy called Africapitalism that drives our business where we make long term investments in key sectors, we consider catalytic for economic growth. We realised it was important to look at the integrated energy play beyond just power. As we think of firewood and its impact on the environment, we want to move to more gas use. With the purchase of the OML 17, we believe that we can help bring access to energy products.

We want to make sure we have gas to support our power plants, the commissioning of our ultra-modern gas plants will happen in September or October this year. We believe gas is the next oil and we are happy that we have an asset producing gas daily.

We want to be able to produce 2000 megawatts of electricity daily. It will be a combination of feeding our power plant (AFAM Power plant) with gas and we believe that through our integrated oil and gas play we will improve access to electricity.”

TOE ON SMEs:

“As the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, the centre of our work is on prioritising and empowering young African entrepreneurs to realise their economic aspirations through training, networking, and support.

While access to capital is important, knowledge, discipline is crucial to the business. Through our digital platform, entrepreneurs are supported and have access to a virtual marketplace as AFCTA becomes more relevant.

When the macro environment is right, banks are more encouraged lend. One of the areas our country has done well is in agriculture, with farmers becoming more empowered through deliberate and consistent work of the Central Bank.

There is a need for the Private Sector and the Government to work together. One of the ways this can be done is through tax incentives. We also need to deal with why SMEs fail – and the heart of that is infrastructure – electricity, transportation, and adverse policy environment.”

TOE ON HOUSING:

“Economies that do not have a middle class cannot be strong economies. One of the basic human needs is shelter and it is an inspiration for many people to own a house. There are 2 critical issues; firstly, the titling law in Nigeria remains challenging. This is a low hanging fruit, where the right policies can change the sector drastically.

Additionally, the foreclosure law is also a challenge and things have not been properly done, the time it takes to access a mortgage has an impact on access to credit and the flow of credit.

The Mortgage to GDP ratio is also quite insignificant and needs to change. For everyone who leaves school and wants to buy a house, they should be able to do so. The banks are ready to do so but there are gaps in the policies.”

TOE ON MANUFACTURING:

“The manufacturing sector is one we are exploring actively and are hopeful for putting a foot in the door at the right time. We hope to set up an industrial pack, with power and gas from our centres where we will equip businesses with the right environment to run their businesses. With the AfCFTA presenting additional opportunities, we cannot ignore the opportunities present.”

The post Tony O. Elumelu Speaks On Key Sectors of The Nigerian Economy appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

Since inception, The Tony Elumelu Foundation has directly empowered over 3,000 female entrepreneurs. TEF Alumni have gone to directly create an additional 35,000 jobs for women. Our position is clear and actionable: create an ecosystem where everyone, regardless of their gender benefits from equal opportunity to scale and thrive.

Google.org, shares a similar vision. Earlier this week, we announced a $3Million grant from Google.org to complement the 2021 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. 500 additional rural-based aspiring women entrepreneurs will receive seed capital of $5,000. These 500 aspiring African women entrepreneurs will come from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and select Francophone countries. The objective is to increase economic inclusion, improve economies and further empower these rural-based women to lift them from poverty, strengthen their livelihoods and incomes, while creating more decent jobs in the African economy.

Addressing this announcement, our CEO, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu commented, “As Africa’s leading philanthropy empowering young African entrepreneurs, this grant support will provide financial and technical support for additional women-owned businesses and marginalized groups in the informal sector through the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. There is no better time to invest in women’s economic participation on the continent than now. Through this support, women will drive growth for local economies and enable better living conditions for their communities. We are delighted to disburse the Google.org grant to scale our ongoing work to empower young African entrepreneurs as we believe this will be instrumental in building much-needed businesses and resilient economies”.

This announcement directly correlates with our mission to catalyze economic growth, drive poverty eradication, and ensure job creation in Africa. Selection would prioritise informal businesses, further equipping them with digital skills through TEFConnect, our proprietary digital platform supporting millions of African entrepreneurs with access to free resources for professional development, knowledge sharing opportunities and quality market linkages.

Nitin Gajria, Managing Director of Google Sub-Saharan Africa echoed a dedication to building a world where all women can thrive. Looking at data collected by the World Bank across 10 African countries, he revealed that male-owned enterprises have six times more capital than female owned enterprises. For him, “The huge capital gap is not stopping the rise of female entrepreneurs, but it slows them down and makes their journeys that much more challenging. We hope that the support to The Tony Elumelu Foundation will help accelerate the growth of women tech-makers and entrepreneurs in Africa”.

Today, women-led businesses are disproportionately at risk as a result of the pandemic that has led to economic strife. This is unsurprising, given that they had very limited support to begin with. Female African Entrepreneurs require access to knowledge, skills, tools, and funding in order to navigate the changing operational landscape.

Rowan Barnett, Head of Google.org EMEA, agrees to this. He says, “we support organizations that offer financial and training resources to underserved small business owners to improve their economic livelihoods and create opportunity for themselves, their employees, and their communities. As one of the leading pan-African philanthropies empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, we are delighted to support the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme created to empower, invest in and create opportunities for African entrepreneurs”.

Update: About The WE4A II (Women Entrepreneurship for Africa, 2024 Application Process)

Following the successful pilot of the WE4A programme in 2021, the Foundation in partnership with the European Union (EU) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has launched the WE4A II for sustainable and inclusive growth. Application for the WE4A II is ongoing, Read about the WE4A II FAQs here

This partnership is part of the overall IYBA-WE4A programme which will work to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystems, access to finance and capacities of women-led MSMEs and start-ups in selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The design of the IYBA-WE4A programme seeks to address the existing capacity, business services and funding gaps for its target group -women-led MSMEs and start-ups- and strengthen relevant networks and learning on successful pathways for women entrepreneurs. Overall, the IYBA-WE4A programme in encouraging and sustaining women entrepreneurs and their businesses contributes to the creation of employment and economic prosperity.

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