The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of US$5 million to enable the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP) to scale up its outreach and impact to 1,000 select youth entrepreneurs.
Launched in December 2014 by the Tony Elumelu Foundation, the programme is a 10-year, US$100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs by 2024.
Applications open for its sixth cycle on January 1, and in the meantime the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the AfDB have agreed a partnership that will enable an additional 1,000 entrepreneurs to benefit from the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme.
The AfDB said the programme aligns with the bank’s ten-year Jobs for Youth in Africa strategy, launched in 2016 to support the creation of 25 million decent jobs across the continent. The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme will deliver business training, mentoring, access to networks, markets and capital for business development to selected youth-led startups in order for them to grow and create jobs.
