Tony Elumelu Foundation partners with state owned enterprises

Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC), Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) through the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) have partnered with the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) for the training and funding of 20 Botswana Start-ups. The premise of the partnership is to leverage the widely acclaimed Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme (TEF EP), which is a $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor and fund 10 000 African Entrepreneurs over 10 years. The programme, the brainchild of Nigerian millionaire Tony Elumelu has so far empowered 4 470 entrepreneurs with an investment of over $22 million. According to the Ministry, the partnership is a response to the problem of rising youth unemployment across the African continent, including Botswana. Africa currently has close to 200 million youth, unemployed, underemployed or inactive. Forecasts indicate that by 2025 there will be an additional 150 million new youth work force entrants in Africa. To cater for this growing population, entrepreneurship and job creation must be prioritized by governments, private sector, development institutions and all stakeholders. From selection to disbursement and post-disbursement for up to five years, monitoring and evaluation will be a joint effort between the three parastatals. The purpose of embedding this project in a robust monitoring and evaluation framework is to track the impact of the programme. According to Neo Tumelo of CEDA, CEDA will specifically be responsible for the training and mentoring of the 20 entrepreneurs selected for this year’s Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme. This will be for a duration of five years. The application portal was launched on January 1, and closes on March 1, and all local entrepreneurs are encouraged to apply. The entrepreneurship programme accepts business ideas as well as existing businesses with less than three years of experience in all sectors of the economy. In 2015, the TEF consolidated its various programmes and initiatives and made investing in Africa’s next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders a priority. The vision for the Foundation is to unlock the obstacles that Africa’s entrepreneurs face as they grow their start-ups into small to medium enterprises (SMEs), their SMEs into national growth companies and their national growth companies into African Multinationals.