لكن مؤسسة توني أيلوميلو سوف تجهز بتدريب عبر TEFConnect مجانا ومشاركة مع ذوي الأمور والحكومات والمعاهد التمويلية التنمية لأجل تحريك التأييد المزيد للملتزمين الأفريقيين بعد أزمة فيروس كورونا. وتضيف TEFConnect إطلاعا حاسما حول الوباء لأجل صون صحة وأمان جميع الأفارقة مع إصدار أخبار تأثيرية من ملتزمين أفريقيين إلى غاية إحداث تبددات بارعة ضد هذه الوباء المنفجرة.

الصحة والأمان هما المقدمان عندنا، وترغب المؤسسة الجميع بأن يكونوا على الحذر وأن يلتزموا الوصايا الصحية الصادرة من التنظيم العالمي الصحي (WHO) والحكومات الدولية وسائر التنظيمات الصحية المناسبة.

للمزيد من الأخبار وما بقي من الخطوات التالية للمتميزين الذين قد قدموا استخداماتهم لبرنامج 2020، زوروا موضع الاسئلة المسؤولة عنها دائما (FAQs) على الموقع بضغط هنا.

Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu
CEO
مؤسسة توني أيلوميلو
لاغوس, Nigeria.

Click here for French , Arabic, Portuguese

The post الإعلان الاشتراكي تأجل مؤسسة توني أيلوميلو البرنامج التنظيمي TEF 2020 وملتقى TEF إلى عام 2021 appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

“Despite the potency of sport/football in promoting unity, it is never a match for the TEF forum convergence”

This year’s convergence of African entrepreneurs at the 2019 Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Forum was unarguably the largest gathering of young African entrepreneurs. More impressive was the fact that it was facilitated by an individual non-state actor, whose convening power drew the attendance of five African leaders, state governors, private sector leaders, o the city of Abuja, Nigeria.

Paradigm Shift in the Ideology of the African Economy

During the period between the 1950s and 1980s, many African countries, particularly in the West, East and Central regions of the continent adopted and attempted to adapt the Marxist-Leninist socialist economic model to push the growth of the newly independent states. It also adopted tactics in the struggle against colonial rule in other countries still under the control of Europe. Western capitalists were unrelenting in perpetuating post-colonial imperial rule through aid and financial assistance/grants. Within this period, over 600 billion dollars was transferred to Africa without commensurate socio-economic impact.

Fast forward to the present – the 2019 TEF Entrepreneurship Forum was an explicit revelation of the aggressive resolve of capitalism to democratise the economy of the entire African continent, a project being led by the organized private sector. The ambitious and audacious step of Tony Elumelu with his USD100million commitment to identify, mentor, train and fund 10,000 young African entrepreneurs across the 54 countries of the continent has apparently compelled African leaders to consider the redeeming option of capitalism (Africapitalism in Elumelu’s word) as a panacea to ending poverty and impoverishment in Africa. The western developmental institutions seem to be swayed by Elumelu’s ingenuity as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has just recently pledged to support the project with sponsorship of 100,000 beneficiaries; the African Development Bank, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), among others also committed to funding a sizeable number of young entrepreneurs.

It will be difficult, henceforth, for African leaders to ignore a concept projected to mobilise fund for millions of the continent’s youths.

SMES TO THE RESCUE

It was the consensus of speakers and delegates at this year’s TEF Forum that the Africa economy can only be transformed with massive investment in Small and Medium Scale enterprises. Hence the USD5,000 seed capital for each selected applicant offered by the Tony Elumelu Foundation through its flagship Entrepreneurship Programme presents a reliable model to seed fund SMEs while tracking their progress. The CEO of the Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, stated in her speech, that to empower 1million young Africans, 5billion dollars would be needed. These 1million entrepreneurs would then create 25million jobs the continent desperately needs. Evidently, Fareed Zakari, the CNN GPS anchor who moderated the presidential dialogue involving Heads of government of five African countries declared that 85% of jobs in Europe in the last 5 years were created by SMEs. His view corroborates an earlier statement by Nigerian Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, who gave testimony of some African youths who are making a continental and global statement through their innovation and their enterprise.

Non-State Actor as an Agent of African Integration and Socio-Economic Development

Since the coming on board of the Organization of African Unity, OAU, African nations have struggled to achieve unity. Apart from a significant success in the struggle against colonialism, there are yet significant milestones for the organisation, now in its 39 years of existence, to achieve.

However, the convergence of thousands of youths from across the continent is quite phenomenal and signposts a new dawn in the African socio-economic Renaissance and Unity. For what unites people most is economic interest. This event, which was the fifth in the series, is unarguably the first time African youths would gather anywhere on the continent to engage their governments, interact with one another and form partnership for prosperity (Now, thanks to the Tony Elumelu Foundation, I have friends in Chad, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe).

Despite the potency of sport/football in promoting unity, it is never a match for the TEF forum convergence.

By implication, what the OAU/AU has been unable to achieve in the economic, social or political spheres has been pioneered by just an individual player in the private sector—Tony Elumelu. It is therefore instructive that African leaders should without much ado, key into this concept which can serve as a verifiable tool of economic development, promotion of African unity, youth participation and an end to continental terrorism.

Mirroring African Unity through TEF

Notwithstanding my observation above about the potency of this singular individual effort to promote continental cohesion and integration, the event clearly manifested the continued division among the 54 African countries. For the two days of the Programme, I observed with keen interest, the participating nations, I noticed that the Northern and Southern Africa were not quite as represented in numbers as their Western and Eastern counterpart.

Rural and Urban Dwellers Gap

Despite the obvious conscious efforts by the Tony Elumelu Foundation to increase the applicants in rural areas into its Entrepreneurship Programme (and more recently, it launched a partnership with UNDP to empower 100,000 young African entrepreneurs with a focus on rural dwellers), there needs to be a more conscious effort to include rural dwellers at the Forum to balance the representation among attendees. Conscious efforts must continue to be made to create more opportunities in rural areas.

Conclusion

Albeit, the capitalist system always provides the space and policy for the donor-charity inclined persons to recoup their investment, the example of Tony Elumelu has pioneered is worth emulating to reduce the obvious frustration that could lead to catastrophes if the hopelessness among young persons in Africa continues unabated.

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Excellencies: Her Excellency, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, represented by Her Excellency, Dr. Mairo Almakura; Her Excellency, the First Lady of the Republic of Guinea, Madame Djene Condé; Her Excellency, the First Lady of the Republic of Mali, Madame Keïta Maiga, the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, our distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It is my great honour to welcome everyone seated here, and those joining us online, to the 2019 edition of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum.

On behalf of the Founder–my husband, our family, and the entire staff of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, I thank you for being here

To all our amazing entrepreneurs seated here this morning: I say, big congratulations!

Many of you have traveled here from across Africa. For a number of you, this is your first time of visiting Nigeria. So, let me not only say welcome to the Entrepreneurship Forum, but also welcome to Nigeria!

We are truly happy to have you here – to celebrate you and to empower you!

As an entrepreneur, it is not always easy, I can attest. The reality of starting a business is tough, tough. They did not, and cannot, teach us the realities of being an entrepreneur in school. They did not warn us that having a great idea is simply not enough.

First, you have to raise adequate capital to lift your idea off the ground; manage the capital prudently; then, you need the right people – the right team to actualize your dream, the right mentors for advice and direction, and the right support network. You have to navigate rules and regulatory issues from agencies that you did not even know existed.

Then when your business finally gets running, there are those days where you just stare at the numbers, almost willing or wishing them to make sense. (Brief Pause)

Yet you stand. You will not only prevail, you will thrive and be successful!

Those ideas and innovations that came to you as you dreamt, in the shower, in the office, during chitchat with friends. They are crystallising into businesses that are transforming our continent, every single day.

You are the backbone upon which the future of Africa rests.

As some of you may well know, this is our ninth year as a Foundation and our fifth entrepreneurship Forum.

I hope that as more people take the stage over the next few days, you will enjoy all that we have with great care, put together for you. And that everyone, not only our entrepreneurs, will gain a lot from the insights of the speakers and leaders who have traveled from far and wide to share their knowledge and expertise.

They have made tremendous efforts to be here because of their belief in YOU and in the philosophy of Africapitalism that the private sector, especially SMEs, are key to Africa’s social and economic transformation.

Let me also take this moment to thank our distinguished speakers who have made the decision, many at great personal cost, to be here. We are truly, truly grateful!

A key message that I would like everyone to leave this Forum with, is empowering YOU, our young Africans must be prioritised if we must develop our continent.

I’ll take a quick step back to situate what we do in a global context. We have all heard that, with sixty percent of our population aged under 30, Africa is currently the youngest population in the world. The possibilities it presents for development are huge.

The expectation is that an abundant population of strong, able-bodied youth will lead to economic development across the continent. This is where our work at the Tony Elumelu Foundation comes in.

When young men and women start businesses, they lift their families out of poverty. They bring prosperity, security and hope to their communities and create a culture of innovation and creativity.

They export African excellence to the world.

And speaking of exporting African excellence – just a quick story. My daughters, like many young people, are huge, huge fans of Beyoncé. In fact, because of them, there is hardly any Beyoncé song that I don’t know! Anytime she releases a new album, it’s like Christmas day in our household. So, you can imagine the excitement last week when she released a new album. Screams galore!

But I was even more surprised when I looked at the musical artists featured on the album: Tiwa Savage, WizKid, Burna Boy, Yemi Alade and Shatta Wale among others. Our very own homegrown African talent sharing the stage with the biggest popstar in the world!

It is an amazing testament to the immense potential of African entrepreneurs individually and as a collective. With the right push, the right resources and the right environment, YOU, our entrepreneurs can compete on the world stage.

And this excellence cuts across all sectors – in agriculture, in ICT, in medicine, in fashion, really across all sectors! This reinforces our belief at the Tony Elumelu Foundation, that there are hidden gems in Africa who with the right amount of support, training and seed capital can be global trailblazers in their chosen fields.

Young Africans, there is excellence within YOU. You owe it to yourselves, your families and your communities to put in the hard work, to build the resilience and to keep at it until you succeed.

The world awaits YOU!

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