An Africapitalist Approach to Growth, Led by Tony Elumelu

Last December in Nigeria, well-known billionaire Tony Elumelu announced his project to fund 1,000 entrepreneurs across 52 African countries through the Tony Elumelu Foundation. This initiative makes up part of a broader entrepreneurship program that his foundation has launched to reform and revamp Africa’s private sector.

Expected to spend $100M over the next decade, the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP) represents the largest donation ever given by a businessperson for the development of small businesses in Africa. TEEP aims to support over 10,000 entrepreneurs and to create at least one million jobs in the process. Elumelu’s ultimate goal is to provoke a purely African economic-social transformation to intensify job creation and social mobility throughout the region. Mr. Elumelu understands entrepreneurs as “Africa’s hope for the future.”

The funding operates around a multi-year program to include “training, seed capital and mentoring and is primarily designed to empower the next generation of African entrepreneurs” according to Elumelu. Furthermore, the Nigerian billionaire stated that entrepreneurs and the private sector at large have important roles to play in the growth of the continent. In its first year of operation, the program received around 20,000 applications for only 1,000 available positions. The program will continue to accept 1,000 entrepreneurs per year for the next ten years.

With a background mostly in corporate investment, Elumelu’s shift toward a social mission has surprised many. He was born and raised in Nigeria and is now considered one of its most admired business leaders. Among his main investments are a controlling interest in Nigeria’s largest publicly traded conglomerate Transcorp, a sizeable portfolio of real estate across his country and a “significant stake” in the United Bank for Africa. After founding Heirs Holding to invest across the African continent, he shifted focus toward the Tony Elumelu Foundation. He is the author of “Africapitalism,” a leading economic philosophy that advocates the role of the private sector in long-term strategic investment in order to contribute positively to Africa’s growth.

Fortunately for the program, TEEP comes at a time when Nigeria’s entrepreneurship landscape is strong due to the rise in poverty and the lack of job opportunities. This economic situation leaves the people with little option but to employ themselves. Non-profit organizations such as the Fate Foundation or Ashoka promote entrepreneurship throughout all levels of society and have a heavy presence in the country. For example, Ashoka oversees and mentors 80 fellows (entrepreneurs) in the country.  In contrast to most African countries, Nigerians have a better recognition of the importance of technology in the development of the nation and, in recent years, numerous tech-related ideas such as Internet cafés or computers in schools have proliferated. These developments have been endorsed by the government itself, which has passed several policies that promote the usage of technology for education and the workplace. These measures are in part responsible for Nigeria’s prospering economy, which is now the largest in Africa.