The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ECOWAS Commission to deepen and amplify both institutions’ efforts in supporting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well as promoting entrepreneurship and wealth creation in the sub-region.
The MoU signed in Abuja is for a period of two years and allows both organisations to leverage their respective capacities and sharpen their focus on entrepreneurship as a tool of development.
Specifically, the collaboration will help to formalise and instil competitiveness in the West-African entrepreneurship ecosystem by developing and implementing a Regional Strategy and Charter, which will promote best practices in MSME governance, better access to finance, access to regional and international markets, and capacity building.
It will also advocate for improvement in the enabling business environment for SMEs through joint organisation of workshops along sectoral lines to promote business and investments, and harmonise policies and fiscal issues that create an enabling business environment.
The collaboration also hopes to spread and strengthen the philosophy of Africapitalism by socialising it with key stakeholders while provide research opportunities in data analysis and gathering on the state of West African SME landscape.
It also seeks to teach Entrepreneurship in the ECOWAS region, including Africapitalism as a study in the national education curriculum (starting from primary school) of ECOWAS member states.
TEF Entrepreneurship Programme – the largest African philanthropic initiative devoted to entrepreneurship- represents a 10-year, $100 million commitment, to identify and empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs, create a million jobs and add $10 billion in revenues to Africa’s economy.
Already the foundation has identified and funded 2,000 youth entrepreneurs in the sub-region.
Speaking at the MoU signing event, Tony Elumelu, founder of TEF, said there was a worrying level of poverty and youth unemployment in Africa, particularly West Africa that needed urgent attention.
Thanking the ECOWAS Commission for creating the partnership platform, Elumelu stressed, the provision of seed capital to young entrepreneurs must continuously be encouraged if Africa is to escape the unemployment and poverty conundrum.
“If we get our youth engaged, they will be able to take care of themselves as well as help their families and provide jobs for others. That is a sustainable way of eradicating poverty and creating employment,” he stated.
“I am convinced by the fact that collectively, caring Africans can help deal with the challenges of unemployment and poverty by helping our young ones to develop their ideas, realise their dreams and be like the Mark Zuckerbergs of this world.”
Elumelu noted that it is even more important to support business ideas at infancy stages so that they can even grow to attract more attention and patronage, citing the example of Co-Creation Hub; a technology hub in and around Lagos, established to co-create new solutions to the many social problems in Nigeria.
“Today, they have grown very big and only a few days ago brought Zuckerberg to Nigeria. It gladdens my heart that we encouraged and supported them at infancy, years ago,” he said.
An elated President of the ECOWAS Commission His Excellency Marcel De Souza remarked that ECOWAS sees itself as partners of Tony Elumelu Foundation since both parties share core values on the all-important issue of youth empowerment and poverty reduction in the region.
He lauded the TEF initiative which is improving the lives of the younger generation employing the Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement and helping to create a model which would not only uplift the youth of the present generation but the larger population of Africa and bringing a collective good to the continent in the process.
The ECOWAS president was supported at the ceremony by senior officials of the Commission including the Commissioner for Industry and Private
Sector Promotion Kalilou Traore who equally noted that the partnership between ECOWAS and The Tony Elumelu Foundation was only natural as the ECOWAS Treaty had recognized the role of the private sector for the promotion of human development, leading the Commission to create a full-fledged Directorate for Private Sector Promotion in 2007.
According to Commissioner Traore, ECOWAS has since come up with several projects and programmes geared towards improving the business environment. He cited some of the programmes to include the Common investment code as well as the regional charter of SMEs, which seeks to create special attention for MSMEs in the region especially in matters concerning access to finance and capacity building.
Also on hand at the MOU ceremony were the Chief Operating Officer of Tony Elumelu Foundation, Abimbola Adebakin, Vice President of the Commission Edward Singhatey, the ECOWAS Financial Controller, Sani Bello, and the Commissioner, General Administration and Conference, Stephen Naarte Nartey, commissioner for trade, commissioner of social affairs, commissioner of agriculture and many directors.
