The Sahel region has faced significant instability over the years, marked by socio-political unrest, economic challenges, and environmental crises. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Nigeria have grappled with issues ranging from insurgencies and political upheaval to severe climate change impacts that exacerbate poverty and displacement. These challenges have stifled economic growth and hindered the potential of millions of young people, leaving them vulnerable and without opportunities for advancement. The volatile environment has created an urgent need for sustainable solutions that address both the immediate and long-term needs of the region’s youth.

In response to these pressing issues, the Tony Elumelu Foundation partnered with the United Nations Development Programme in 2019 to launch the TEF-UNDP Youth Entrepreneurship Programme with the aim of fostering entrepreneurial growth and economic resilience across the Sahel and Lake Chad region. This was a timely and necessary intervention, as this initiative sought to empower 100,000 young African entrepreneurs from Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Nigeria over a decade, providing them with seed capital, business management training, and mentoring to transform informal business ventures into formal enterprises.

By prioritising African entrepreneurs as catalysts for economic development, the programme leveraged the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s proven approach to catalytic philanthropy, as well as its expertise and resources. This empowerment strategy not only aimed to alleviate the immediate economic hardships but also to foster a resilient and self-sustaining economic environment, transforming the lives of young entrepreneurs by equipping them with essential skills and financial support, uplifting local economies, and contributing to the stability and prosperity of the region.

Impact Assessment

To effectively measure the outcome of this intervention, the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme engaged the services of independent auditing firm, Sages Consult Limited to research and publish an impact assessment that captures and highlights several significant outcomes, most important of which are:

1.              The programme demonstrated a positive influence at every stage of interaction, from application through to the distribution of seed capital. This inclusivity extended benefits beyond the selected entrepreneurs to all applicants, indicating broader community engagement and empowerment.

2.              Beneficiaries reported enduring improvements in their mindset, confidence, and business acumen, attributing these gains to the programme’s entrepreneurial training and financial support. Many entrepreneurs successfully transitioned from informal to formal business structures, leading to enhanced financial stability and increased profits.

3.              Notably, female entrepreneurs saw substantial improvements in financial metrics, especially those whose businesses surpassed $100 monthly revenue, suggesting a targeted approach for future scaling efforts.

Overall, the programme not only elevated individual entrepreneurs but also enriched the quality of life for their households, as evidenced by improved access to essential services like housing, healthcare, and education.

In conclusion, the 2019 TEF-UNDP Sahel Entrepreneurship Programme effectively fulfilled its objectives by catalysing sustainable development through entrepreneurship. The comprehensive evaluation underscores the programme’s success in fostering economic resilience and community prosperity across the Sahel region.

Download the Full TEF-UNDP SAHEL Assessment Report

For more detailed insights, you can download the full evaluation report here. This summary highlights how the TEF’s initiatives have positively impacted entrepreneurship in the Sahel region, showcasing effective support for sustainable development.

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Kigali, 13^th October 2022: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda and the Tony Elumelu Foundation have signed a historic 4-year agreement worth $1.4m USD and lasting from 2022-2026 to empower the youth of Rwanda to benefit from more inclusive, competitive, and sustainable economic growth in the country. It is part of the new partnership agreement signed with the European Union (EU) earlier this year aimed to expand the socio- economic opportunities for youth.

This new partnership will position entrepreneurship as a driver of business growth and job creation, empowering young people through an intensive programme involving entrepreneurship capacity building, financial start-up support, and one-on-one business mentorship. Set to be undertaken by UNDP alongside the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the Ministry of Youth and Culture, the programme will:

1. Provide training to 400 young Rwandan entrepreneurs with an innovative business idea.
2. Provide seed funding to 100 young Rwandan entrepreneurs to start and scale their businesses.
3. Provide one-on-one business mentorship delivered by the nation’s leading entrepreneurs.
4. Ensure that 50 percent of programme beneficiaries are women.

The youth of Rwanda (aged 16-30 years) make up around one third of the country’s population. While youth remain key to the country’s transformational growth, the youth of Rwanda still face several challenges including high levels of poverty (29.5 percent of young people live in households below the poverty line), high levels of unemployment and underemployment (15.7 percent unemployment rate among young people), as well as low levels of entrepreneurship and skills shortages.

Youth unemployment remains a persistent development challenge, with UNDP and partners positioning job creation fuelled by entrepreneurship – particularly youth-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – as a priority development solution.

Mr. Maxwell Gomera, UNDP Resident Representative in Rwanda outlined the importance of young people in shaping Rwanda’s development journey. “This partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation will directly benefit the young men and women of Rwanda through the creation of more than 1,600 new businesses,” he said. “I have no doubt that these businesses, led by a new generation of entrepreneurs, will also contribute greatly to jobs creation and livelihoods opportunities for more youth. UNDP is committed to positioning young people at the heart of Rwanda’s development journey and alongside our valued partners we will continue to empower young men and women to reach their fullest potential.”

“We are excited to scale our impact of poverty alleviation, job creation and women empowerment in Africa through this inaugural partnership with UNDP Rwanda, and the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and Culture. The Tony Elumelu Foundation entrepreneurship programme was developed on the principle that the economic empowerment of African youth is pivotal to economic growth and sustainable development across the African continent, and we believe that this partnership will move us closer to our shared vision to support African youth through entrepreneurship by creating sustainable opportunities for transformative development across the continent.” – Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, CEO TEF.

About UNDP

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustices of poverty, inequality and climate change. Working with a broad network of experts and partners in over 170 countries, UNDP helps nations to build integrated and lasting solutions for people and planet.

UNDP is committed to addressing the youth unemployment and underemployment challenge through equipping youth with vocational skills, increasing the competitiveness of youth within the labour market, building capacities of national institutions to mainstream youth employment, and supporting youth-led enterprises to pilot and scale innovative ideas.

About Tony Elumelu Foundation

The Tony Elumelu Foundation is the leading champion of entrepreneurship in Africa, with the objective of empowering women and men across the continent, catalysing economic growth, driving poverty eradication, and ensuring job creation. The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s vision is predicated on our Founder, Mr. Tony O. Elumelu C.F.R.’s economic principle of Africapitalism, which emphasises the critical role that the private sector – more specifically entrepreneurs – play in the fulfilment of Africa’s development, and to actualize this, the private sector must create both economic and social wealth.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme is a flagship programme of the Foundation with the purpose of: i) identifying 10,000 African start-ups and entrepreneurs with ideas that have the potential to succeed, over a period of ten years; ii) supporting the growth of these businesses through business training, mentorship, access to seed funding, and admitting entrepreneurs as members of the Foundation’s Africa-wide alumni network and; iii) creating businesses that can generate at least 1 million new jobs and contribute at least $10 billion USD in new annual revenues across Africa.

For media inquiries contact: 

Stella Tushabe
External Relations Officer, UNDP 
stella.tushabe@undp.org  

Moyo Olisa 
Ag. Head, Marketing & Corporate Comms, TEF 
Moyo.olisa@tonyelumelufoundation.org 

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Similar to the high-level meeting in March 2021, when TEF hosted the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCTA), Wamkele Mene, to identify new opportunities presented by the AfCFTA to jointly strengthen, scale and support small and medium scale enterprises across all 54 African countries, the interactive session explored how Africa’s youth demography can be effectively positioned to take advantage of opportunities of the AfCFTA. Echoing the mission of the Foundation, Ifeyinwa reiterated how entrepreneurship has the potential to improve the economic status for both entrepreneurs themselves and their communities. The session was a chance to challenge the youth to think creatively and look inwards for opportunities that can be scaled through the framework of the AFCFTA. Here is a summary of some of her points:

The TEF and UNDP Entrepreneurship Intervention For Africa’s Youth:

• The Tony Elumelu Foundation entered an MOU with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2017 to scale our mission to empower young African entrepreneurs, with focus on marginalized and undeserved demographics across Africa.
• TEF and the UNDP have jointly funded close to 4,000 African entrepreneurs from the Sahel region; Mali, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania, and North-East Nigeria, to all countries across the regions of the continent.
• Beneficiaries of the TEF and UNDP partnership have delivered significant impact in their local communities. Read more about their success stories here.

The Importance of AfCFTA to African entrepreneurs:

• A recent report by the World Bank indicates that the AFCFTA trade pact could boost regional income by 7% or $450 billion, speed up wage growth for women, and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035.

• The pandemic has had an obvious negative effect on Africa’s growth and development and a successful implementation of AfCFTA would help cushion these effects by supporting regional trade and value chains through the reduction of trade costs.

• Statistics show that Africa currently has the lowest percentage of intra-regional trade in the world at 18%, compared with 70% in Europe, 55% in North America, 45% in Asia, and 35% in Latin America.

• These alarming figures are the reason why platforms like these are important. Trade is an integral factor for development for economy and who better to explore the opportunities of this trade than the biggest stakeholders, the youth.

• Again, a successful implementation of the AfCFTA will greatly increase regional trade levels up, increase the continent’s annual economic growth, create wealth more inclusively and reduce poverty. The possibilities are endless when trade policies, regulations, and institutions of all 54 countries on the continent are aligned.

• One of the benefits of AfCFTA will be tariff reduction or a total elimination of custom duties on imported goods from within the continent. This way business in Africa can trade with each other without having to worry about the tariff barrier that currently exists.

• When businesses can trade freely with each other on the continent, it provides a much more stable trade ecosystem, freer movement of people, goods, and services, increased continental market access for SMEs, more efficient knowledge transfer, amongst others.These are positive indicators for investors looking for opportunities within the continent.

• An increase in intra-continental trade will invariably lead to an increase in economies of scale. Business owners will be able to purchase raw materials at a much cheaper rate, enjoy cheaper costs and more easily scale their operations. This will allow them to be better and more seamlessly integrated into the global market.

Equipping young entrepreneurs with the resources and competencies to harness the benefits of a unified economy:

• Africa’s move towards becoming one single continental economy will be an economic revolution which must be greatly encouraged. This is owed to the fact that the opportunities that the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) presents will see to the unifying of over1.2 billion people and a combined GDP of over $3.4 trillion. Going by these numbers alone, the possibilities of growth and prosperity on the continent, are endless.

• Considering the large percentage of young people on the continent; it is evident that young and enterprising African will be the key drivers on our path to becoming a single economy. They play such an integral part in being able to harness the opportunities that the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) offers.

• To ensure that these young Africans are well equipped to take advantage of the benefits of a unified continental economy, platforms such as the Youth Connect Africa Summit are also very important. This platform is not only a gathering of young people across the continent, hungry to make an impact but also, government officials, policy makers and any individual or organisation who plays a role in youth development

• We need to create and implement policies that encourage and support entrepreneurship within the region. The entrepreneurship ecosystem must be enabling and conducive to encourage young people to go down that path.

TEF’s mandate to equip African youth to explore trade opportunities on the continent:

• At the Tony Elumelu Foundation, to advance our mission to empower African youths, we created TEFConnect. This our proprietary digital platform that provides capacity-building support, advisory and market linkages to over 1 million Africans and counting. It is the largest digital networking platform for African Entrepreneurs. Through this platform, entrepreneurs from across the continent can network and access world class trainings and mentorships that will benefit their businesses in the immediate and the continent at large in the long run.

• At the Foundation, we continue to equip young Africa entrepreneurs to take advantage of these trade opportunities through our annual entrepreneurship programme. The entrepreneurs undergo world-class business training, have access to mentorship and receive a non-refundable seed capital up to $5,000, and global networking opportunities.

• This is made possible through our Founder’s $100 million commitment to empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs in 10 years in line with the belief that African entrepreneurs are the major drivers of economic growth. A belief that formed our founding philosophy known as Africapitalism.

The post The Possibilities Are Endless When Trade Policies, Regulations, And Institutions On The Continent Are Aligned appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

Telling the story of our impact through the TEF & UNDP Partnership

In 2017, the Tony Elumelu Foundation entered an MOU with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to scale our mission to empower young African entrepreneurs, with focus on marginalized and undeserved demographics across Africa. From the Sahel region; Mali, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania, and North-East Nigeria, to all countries across the regions of the continent, TEF and the UNDP have jointly funded close to 4,000 African entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs have created tens of thousands of jobs in their communities across Africa. Read more about their success stories here.

Improving living conditions for people across the Sahel and in conflict areas

For over a decade, the Northeast part of Nigeria has experienced insurgency and counter-insurgency activities that have resulted to the loss of lives and livelihoods, displacement of people, and disruption of decent jobs and socio-economic activities. The UNDP is currently involved in a host of activities to generate economic activity in a long-term fashion. By creating modern cities in these affected areas that add dignity to humanity through smart and sustainable housing solutions, to seamless cash transfers that help the people who most need it, to working with state governments and other players to channel investments to support the masses, the UNDP’s support in the Sahel region is all-encompassing.

Enabling environment for African entrepreneurs

Historically, African countries have traded across their shared borders, and formed border communities to support this significant trade. In certain parts of the Sahel region today, the level of insecurity has led to an increasing loss of livelihood at these borders. Complementing our mission to empower African entrepreneurs, the UNDP is working to bring peace and stability in these regions to revive trade in these communities. Their peace mission will enable commerce once again, and improve the socio-economic outlook for millions of Africans.

Creating more jobs in Nigeria

Established August 31st August 2021, the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme (NJFP) is a youth empowerment partnership initiative between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), involving private companies that include our parent Group, Heirs Holdings. Through the NJFP, talented graduates can get access to local job opportunities in line with their area of expertise. These graduates are also equipped with world-class practical knowledge and skills regardless of whether they possess any previous work experience.

Looking to a better future together

TEF and UNDP partnership has enabled small businesses with funding quality business management training, mentoring, and life-long membership to the Tony Elumelu Foundation Africa-wide alumni network. In addition, these entrepreneurs have gained access to key networks, markets, and growth opportunities via TEFConnect.com. Together, we believe we will continue to empower thousands of young African entrepreneurs, support and scale their businesses, and build local capacity in these startups to create more jobs and alleviate poverty across their communities and the continent.

The post 5 Takeout’s From TEF Hosting The UNDP Global Leadership In Lagos appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

• The TEF-UNDP Mali Entrepreneurship Programme leverages the Pan-African Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme knowhow and process to identify, train and fund young entrepreneurs

• A critical economic intervention to restore peace and economic stability in Mali

November 1, 2020, Bamako, Mali – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the global development network of the United Nations, and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) — the leading champion of entrepreneurship in Africa — have opened applications for the TEF-UNDP Mali Entrepreneurship Programme to train, mentor and fund 10,000 young Malian entrepreneurs over a 3-year period, as part of significant economic recovery intervention in Mali.

This youth empowerment initiative is part of the broader Tony Elumelu Foundation-UNDP Entrepreneurship Program, launched in 2019 to support 100,000 entrepreneurs across Africa.

The United Nations estimates that over 1.7 million people have been displaced by violence in Mali since 2012, further exacerbating an already volatile Sahel region. The TEF-UNDP Mali Entrepreneurship Programme directly addresses the economic roots of the crisis, helping to create a basis for sustainable peace in the long term.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Programme demonstrates that entrepreneurship is the single most effective tool to create jobs, opportunity, economic hope, sustained growth, and poverty alleviation.

Commenting on this development, the Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, Tony Elumelu said “under the global leadership of Achim Steiner, the UNDP has shown a long-lasting commitment to vulnerable and at-risk populations throughout Africa and shares our belief at TEF in the power of entrepreneurship and youth empowerment”.

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, said: “COVID 19 recovery strategies must offer new opportunities for SMEs and the Informal economy. The United Nations Development Programme is proud of our partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation, now expanded to Mali – to invest in 10,000 Malian young entrepreneurs over 3 years.  This will counter multidimensional crises by creating jobs, boosting innovation and promoting greener economic growth”.

The programme follows the recently concluded TEF-UNDP Sahel Pilot Programme in 2019 which identified, trained, mentored, and funded 2,004 young entrepreneurs across seven Sahel countries, including Mali, where close to 300 young Malian entrepreneurs benefited from this initiative.

The applications for the TEF-UNDP Mali Entrepreneurship Programme will be hosted on TEFConnect, the largest digital networking platform for African entrepreneurs from November 1^st to 14^th, developed by The Tony Elumelu Foundation.  Following the application period, applicants will receive business training and mentorship, before participating in a pitching competition. The final list of beneficiaries to receive funding will be announced shortly after.

For media enquiry, please contact:

In Bamako: Adam Maiga, +223 75 99 52 63, adam.maiga@undp.org

In Lagos: Ifesinachi Okpagu, +234-1-2774641-5, ifesinachi.okpagu@tonyelumelufoundation.org

About UNDP: UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations to build integrated, lasting solutions for people and planet. Learn more at undp.org or follow at @UNDP.

About the Tony Elumelu Foundation: The Tony Elumelu Foundation is the leading champion of entrepreneurship in Africa.  Our objective is to empower women and men across our continent, catalyzing economic growth, driving poverty eradication and ensuring job creation.

The Foundation’s flagship Entrepreneurship Programme is a $100 million commitment to champion entrepreneurship development in Africa.  Beyond its directly funded annual commitment, the Foundation has begun to partner with global development organizations and governments to scale its robust and proven approach, with the goal of creating economic prosperity and breaking the cycle of poverty on the continent.  For more information, visit:  www.tonyelumelufoundation.org

Follow us on Twitter: @UNDP @TonyElumeluFDN @UNDPAfrica

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