Development
Empowering Additional African Women Entrepreneurs From TEF EVEN BEFORE THERE WAS a pandemic, women-led MSMEs faced more challenges in comparison to their male counterparts. According to the United Nations, 27% of female entrepreneurship rate in Africa is the highest in the world; Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where there are more women than men who become entrepreneurs. Still, most female-led enterprises on the continent are small businesses with few growth opportunities. Female entrepreneurship in Africa is especially hindered by a lack of access to funding, womenowned small businesses find it more difficult to secure financing and investment than their male counterparts. Since inception, The Tony Elumelu Foundation has directly empowered over 3,000 female entrepreneurs. TEF Alumni have gone to directly create an additional 35,000 jobs for women. Our position is clear and actionable: create an ecosystem where everyone, regardless of their gender benefits from equal opportunity to scale and thrive. Google.org, shares a similar vision. In June, we announced a $3Million grant from Google.org to complement the 2021 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. 500 additional rural-based aspiring women entrepreneurs will receive seed capital of $5,000. These 500 aspiring African women entrepreneurs will come from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and select Francophone countries. The objective is to increase economic inclusion, improve economies and further empower these rural-based women to lift them from poverty, strengthen their livelihoods and incomes, while creating more decent jobs in the African economy. Addressing this announcement, our CEO, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu commented, “As Africa’s leading philanthropy empowering young African 34
September-October 2021
entrepreneurs, this grant support will provide financial and technical support for additional women-owned businesses and marginalized groups in the informal sector through the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. There is no better time to invest in women’s economic participation on the continent than now. Through this support, women will drive growth for local economies and enable better living conditions for their communities. We are delighted to disburse the Google.org grant to scale our ongoing work to empower young African entrepreneurs as we believe this will be instrumental in building much-needed businesses and resilient economies”. This announcement directly correlates with our mission to catalyze economic growth, drive poverty eradication, and ensure job creation in Africa. Selection would prioritise informal businesses, further equipping them with digital skills through TEFConnect, our proprietary digital platform supporting millions of African entrepreneurs with access to free resources for professional development, knowledge sharing opportunities DAWN
www.africabusinessassociation.org
