The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $500 million Coalition for African Entrepreneurs announced as US Vice President Kamala Harris Launches $1 Billion Global Initiatives on the Economic Empowerment of Women.
March 29, 2023, Accra, Ghana – U.S. Vice President Harris arrived Accra on Monday to kick off a weeklong, three-nation African tour to announce the launches of global initiatives totaling over USD $1 billion, and call on the private sector, civil society, philanthropic, and government stakeholders to collaborate on promoting the adoption of digital tools and services across Africa. While in Accra, she made a series of announcements on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration, to foster women’s political, economic, and social inclusion in Africa, building upon initiatives launched at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, and the investment-focused Innovators Gathering which was hosted in December 2022 by the U.S. Secretary of State, the Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships, and the Prosper Africa initiative, and presented in collaboration with the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
To promote women’s economic security across Africa, the Tony Elumelu Foundation announced its $500 million Coalition for African Entrepreneurs to support 100,000 young African entrepreneurs, including 50,000 women, by 2033, focusing on fragile states, women’s entrepreneurship, and green entrepreneurship. The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $500 million Coalition, which is open to development agencies, the private sector, philanthropic organisations, and governments to collaborate in empowering Africa’s next generation, will build on support for the Women in Digital Economy Fund and promote women’s economic security across Africa.
The announcement of the Coalition reinforces the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s role as the leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and increasing women economic empowerment. This initiative with significantly increase the impact created by the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s flagship Entrepreneurship Programme through a holistic approach of empowering young African entrepreneurs with access to training, mentoring, digital resources and networks.
Since the launch of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has trained over 1.5 million young Africans on its digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed nearly USD$100 million in direct funding to over18,000 African women and men, who have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.
