UNDP has partnered with the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to financially support 100,000 young entrepreneurs in Africa over 10 years. The partnership is dubbed TEF-UNDP Sahel Youth Entrepreneurship Programme.
The partnership was announced at the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), where TEF Founder, Tony Elumelu and UNDP Regional Director for Africa, Ahunna Eziakonwa joined African Presidents at the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Business Forum, where the agreement was signed. The President of Niger, H.E Mahamadou Issoufou joined UNDP and TEF to launch the programme.
The TEF-UNDP Sahel Youth Entrepreneurship Programme will be implemented through TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. The programme has benefited 7,520 local entrepreneurs across 54 African countries in five years of existence.
Through the TEF-UNDP partnership, the selected applicants will each receive a maximum of $5,000 non-refundable seed capital, access to mentors, a 12-week business training and networking opportunities. They will join the previously announced 3,051 beneficiaries of the 2019 cohort of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.
The applications will be run on TEFConnect and forms will be available in any of the branches of the United Bank for Africa (UBA). Following the end of the application window, an initial longlist of 5,500 applicants will be selected to undergo the 12-week business training. After the training, the final shortlist of 2,000 applicants will be announced to join the previous 2019 TEF cohort.
The annual Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme mentors, trains and gives seed funding to young Africans. The selected Entrepreneurs each receive non- refundable amount of $5,000 in seed capital, access to mentors, and a 12-week business training programme. Over 130 Kenyan entrepreneurs were selected in this year’s TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, nearly double the 74 that were selected last year. This brings the total number of Kenyan entrepreneur beneficiaries from the programme to over 480 over the last 5 years.