Urgent global Marshal Plan needed to save Africa from poverty, instability – Tony Elumelu

Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) and Chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr. Tony Elumelu has called for an urgent Marshal Plan to save Africa from poverty, unemployment, major infrastructural deficits, insecurity and such other serious challenges, insisting that if these continue unattended to, they will pose grave danger to the rest of the world.

Elumelu, whose Entrepreneurship Program has trained, funded and mentored more than 16,000 young African entrepreneurs since the inception of the Program, gave the clarion call in a presentation at the United States Institute of Peace and The Heritage Foundation, in a Fireside Chat with Dana Banks, the Special Assistant to the President of the United States of America and National Security Council Senior Director.

The renowned pan Africanist who spoke on Building Entrepreneurship, Economic Opportunities and Peace in Africa, drew the attention of his audience to the desperation and hopelessness that Africans, especially the youths are currently facing, which accounts for why many of them are ready to undertake the perilous, suicidal trips across dangerous deserts and rough seas to the western world and prefer to die trying than remain in the continent. He pointed out that unless an immediate global coalition emerges to redress this sad situation, the rest of the world would also be in great danger.

According to him, there is need to urgently forge global partnerships to support, especially the youths and women with economic opportunities to reverse the looming catastrophe, noting that the efforts of his Entrepreneurship program alone could not bridge the huge gap.

The proponent of the concept of Africapitalism, Dr. Elumelu said that there are about 600 million under 30 year olds in Africa but that his Foundation is able to only assist about 16,000 with training, mentorship and takeoff funds of $5000, insisting that friends of Africa, especially the USA must come in forcefully to team up with, especially the private sector, to remedy the ugly situations of unemployment and mass poverty which fuel the insecurity sweeping through the continent.

“We need you now more than before,” he said, stressing that “the time to act is now.” According to him, there is need to urgently pool resources together to massively scale up the number of youths and women being trained and empowered to become entrepreneurs, insisting that entrepreneurship is one sure way of pulling many of the youths off the streets.

He also pointed out that there is need for the Western nations and international development institutions to rethink the strategy of pumping millions and billions of dollars in aid money into Africa that has not yielded much positive and sustainable dividends, noting that the strategy has, instead left the continent still dependent after so long. Entrepreneurship, he insisted, would rather create a pool of independent, prosperous men and women who would positively affect their communities and by extension, their nations and the world.

He acknowledged that bad governance in Africa has contributed significantly to the problems of lack of infrastructure, poor power supply, unemployment and poverty and urged that more than before, the engagement of friends of Africa with the continent should include capacity training of public officials to ensure good governance and creation of enabling environment for investments inflow. He also urged the strengthening of the institutions of democracy and for public officials to see the private sector as partners rather than competitors in the effort to drive economic development and prosperity.

He regretted that presently there is a disconnect between the government and private sector players, noting that however hard they try, the fact remains that government does not have the capacity to create the quantum of jobs that can absorb the teeming unemployed youths of the continent, insisting that it is an empowered private sector, operating in a conducive business environment that help to create the needed jobs.

Admitting that technology, digital access, will play a major role in fast-tracking the economic development and prosperity of the African continent, Elumelu revealed that his Foundation has already signed a partnership agreement with Google to help with mass training of youths under the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship training platform, noting that instead of only the about 350,000 youths that applied being out of which 16,000 were selected being trained and given entrepreneurship skills, a lot more youths would be trained seamlessly as a result of the partnership with Google.

He appealed to other global tech players to engage with organisations such as his to assist Africa’s youths in the interest of the global community.

Contributing, Dana Bank said that the Joe Biden administration is using the Prosper Africa initiative, which it inherited from previous administration but is retooling, to provide additional credit and help, especially young men and women harness their powers of ingenuity to grow their businesses and impact their communities positively.

She admitted that such assistance helps to fight insecurity and the terror networks operating in the continent, stressing that available data shows that the program is having positive impact and assuring that there would be more engagement with the private sector going forward.

Banks also stressed the need for African governments to create the enabling environment for investments, noting that the US government would continue to support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.