By Ndumbe Bell Joseph Gaston in Douala
The founder of the Pan – African Bank UBA which is also in parts of Europe and America, Tony Elumelu, has initiated another vision challenging and abhorring youths to join the adult world in seeking solutions for the rapidly disastrous climate change effects that could have long-term effects on what they have achieved so far and other long-term or sustainable growth in the continent’s economic endeavours, if innovations are not made.
Tony Elumelu is also a the philanthropist who founded the Tony Elumelu Foundation which has trained, mentored and financially raised tens of thousands of start ups in Africa to become full-fledged businesspersons around the globe.
Today, the visionary contemplates that it is time for the youth to see the challenges as opportunities for intra-Afri
can trade and development than to wait for others who are preoccupied with the development of their own objectives for the continent.
Elumelu says, “Oftentimes our businesses have (only) traded short-term fostering entrepreneurships, sustaining young entrepreneurs who will grow businesses and create sustainable employment; this is a crucial pathway to achieving long- term climate solutions.”
Chairman Elumelu prophesises that the same way the Foundation was created to tackle poverty and unemployment of the youth is the same way those beneficiaries of his programme have had the means and abilities to tackle climate change.
To tackle the escalating poverty, “Me and my wife founded the Elumelu foundation (TEF) and committed 100 million dollars to mentor and fund young African entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas to tackle the continent’s most pressing challenges”.
Since 2010, the time of its creation, the Foundation has capacitated 20000 entrepreneurs across 54 African States who have created 400 000 direct and indirect jobs and realised revenues of over 2.3 billion dollars. This group is a fraction of the 1.5 million young people who benefitted from business training.
With the resonance of his vision across the globe and the scale of the task, and seen as part of the solution, he partnered with international organisations such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Red Cross to accentuate the results.
As an advocate of climate change, the foundation partnered in 2022 with UNICEF Generation Unlimited (GenU) and IKEA foundation, to launch a green entrepreneurship programme to empower youth whose businesses empower the triple planetary crisis of poverty, unemployment and climate change in the continent.
Chairman Elumelu disclosed that out of the 20 000 capacitated by their foundation, more than 500 are already engaged in climate change-related opportunities and more than 35 percent of these work in the agro- section.
Tony Elumelu who is also the founder of the pan-African bank (United Bank for Africa (U.B.A) highlighted scary statistics as a wake-up call to others stating that “by 2023, 118 million Africans are projected to face drought and rising sea levels will displace millions of the demographic and drown a colossal amount of wealth. He announces the vulnerability of 80 percent of small-holder farmers in sub-saharan Africa, who employ, according to him, 60 percent of the continent’s workforce.
Tony Elumelu then creates an awareness stating that to resolve this narrative is by nurturing entrepreneurships through the public and private sectors which he refers to in his book as ‘Africapitalism”. Briefly, the visionary does not see climate change negative impacts as inevitable but it requires change in commitment by all stakeholders (investors and consumers alike), the encouragement and innovations of the youth to counter the rapid trend and sustain what already is being and has been, achieved.