AfDB approves $5m grant to scale up Tony Elumelu Foundation
Posted by News Express | 17 December 2019 | 1,013 times
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has
approved a grant of five million dollars to enable the Tony Elumelu Foundation
Entrepreneurship Programme to scale up its outreach and impact to 1,000 select
youth entrepreneurs.
The grant follows the signing of a letter of intent between the
Bank and the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, which took
place during the launch of the foundation entrepreneurship programme in March.
The partnership would foster future collaboration focused on
strengthening small to medium-sized enterprises as well as talent and skills
development for Africa’s youth.
The partnership is expected to support 3,050 young entrepreneurs
across 54 African countries.
The Bank’s participation would enable an additional 1,000
entrepreneurs to benefit from the entrepreneurship Programme, which provides
much needed opportunities of curbing the tide of unemployment and inequality
facing the continent’s youngest citizens.
The programme aligns with the Bank’s 10-year Jobs for Youth in
Africa strategy launched in 2016 to support the creation of 25 million decent
jobs across the continent.
The strategy is also expected to equip 50 million young African
people with employable skills that would enable them access economic
opportunities and realise their full economic potential across the continent.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation would deliver business training,
mentoring, access to networks, markets and capital for business development to
selected youth-led start-ups in order for them to grow and create jobs.
The Entrepreneurship Programme had demonstrated a strong alignment
with the Bank’s Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Multi-Donor Trust Fund
objectives to build the African youth entrepreneurship ecosystem by scaling
innovative youth led start-ups, expanding youth market opportunities and
improving youth access to finance.
Other development partners involved in supporting the Tony Elumelu
Entrepreneurship Programme are Agence Française de Développement, the German
Agency for International Cooperation, the United Nations Development Programme
and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They partners would also work to provide more business
opportunities to youth entrepreneurs across the continent.
In 2017, the Bank established the Youth Entrepreneurship and
Innovation Multi-Donor Trust Fund, in partnership with the governments of
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands.
The fund is a grant vehicle managed by the Bank to support the
African entrepreneurship ecosystem directly and indirectly by leveraging on the
Bank’s instruments.
Its interventions will equip Africa’s youth with the right tools
to establish start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises. (NAN)
Source: News Express
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