Tony Elumelu Foundation MSME DAY 2026
MSME DAY 2026
—
**THE TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION**
**2025 ANNUAL REPORT**
—
**Contact Information:**
1, MacGregor Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
www.tonyelumelufoundation.org
Enquiries@tonyelumelufoundation.org
X: @TonyElumeluFDN
Facebook: The Tony Elumelu Foundation
Instagram: @TonyElumelufoundation
LinkedIn: The Tony Elumelu Foundation
—
**Table of Contents**
– About The Tony Elumelu Foundation
– Our Impact Pillars
– Our Approach
– Founder’s Letter
– Co-Founder’s Letter
– Board of Trustees & Advisory Board
– Message from the Chief Executive Officer
– The Tony Elumelu Foundation – 15 Years of Transforming Africa
– A Snapshot of 2025
– Focus on the Artificial Intelligence Sector
– Impact of AI on African Entrepreneurship
– Advocating for Partnerships to Scale AI in Africa
– Diversity, Inclusion and Equitable Access to Economic Opportunity
– Empowering People Living with Disability
– Women’s Entrepreneurship in Africa
– BeGreen Africa: Building the Continent’s Green Pipeline
– DEG Partnership: Institutionalising Green Ecosystems in Africa
– The Tony Elumelu Foundation: The Last Mile Implementer
– Thought Leadership in the African Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
– Research & Case Studies
– Partnership Highlights, Advocacy, and Ecosystem Engagements
– Supporting Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
– 2024 Financials
– The Way Forward
– Meet the TEF Squad
—
**ABOUT THE TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION**
The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is the leading philanthropy committed to catalysing youth entrepreneurship across Africa.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation is empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and ensuring inclusive economic empowerment.
The Foundation’s mission is rooted in African activism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly, entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.
Since our launch in 2010, TEF has empowered over 2.5 million young Africans with access to business management training on our proprietary digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed over US$ 100 million in seed capital to more than 24,000 selected entrepreneurs on the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. Collectively, these entrepreneurs have generated US$ 4.2 billion in revenue and created more than 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs. Through our support for African entrepreneurs, TEF has lifted 2.1 million Africans above the poverty line, and positively impacted more than 4 million African households, with 46% of supported entrepreneurs being African women.
TEF’s ability to fund, train, mentor, and network young African entrepreneurs has created a unique platform for catalysing growth across the African continent.
The robust ability of the Foundation to reach entrepreneurs across geographies and sectors has enabled it to conduct innovative partnerships with the European Union (EU), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United States Government via the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), The French Development Agency (AFD), The German Development Finance Institution (DEG), The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), The African Development Bank (AfDB), Google, UNICEF Generation Unlimited (GenU), IKEA Foundation, the UAE Office of Development Affairs and Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation (an affiliate of Erth Zayed), and others, with bespoke programmes including targeting female empowerment and growth in fragile states.
—
**OUR IMPACT PILLARS**
Our interventions, activities, and programmes adopt a unique and holistic system of effective and intensive support designed to empower African youth, in line with our commitment to engendering sustainable development across seven broad pillars.
**Leadership & Lifelong Development**
We equip African entrepreneurs with the tools, expertise, technical and soft skills required to make them successful and resilient business owners. These include, but are not limited to, leadership skills, business management knowledge, business development tools, and professional networks.
**Economic Growth and Poverty Eradication**
Through our Programme, we are contributing to driving poverty eradication, with a proven track record of positively impacting four million households across the continent and lifting over two million Africans above the global poverty line. We are ultimately shaping the pace and pattern of economic development in all 54 African countries.
**Job Creation & Sustainable Livelihood**
The Tony Elumelu Foundation has contributed to the creation of jobs and a reduction in unemployment levels across the continent by supporting more than 24,000 young African entrepreneurs who have created over 1.5 million jobs in 10 years.
**Innovation & Technology**
Through our proprietary digital platform, TEFConnect, we equip African entrepreneurs with relevant digital tools and future-ready skills. This includes our expertly developed AI training curriculum and the integration of technology across our training delivery to strengthen business capacity, accelerate growth, and enhance competitiveness in an increasingly digital global economy.
**Research, Policy & Advocacy**
Through our direct engagement with African entrepreneurs, we generate rigorous data, insights, and evidence to inform programme design, strengthen accountability, and deepen impact. We deploy extensive and insightful research to drive thought leadership, shape entrepreneurship discourse, and influence policy and regulatory frameworks that create an enabling environment for African entrepreneurs. This evidence-led approach ensures our interventions remain responsive, scalable, and aligned with Africa’s evolving development realities.
**Partnerships, Networking & Linkages to Local and International Markets**
We enhance entrepreneurs’ capacity to scale and thrive by building mutually beneficial partnerships across TEF’s expansive ecosystem of mentors, investors, corporate partners, development institutions, governments, alumni, and peers. Through structured networking platforms, ecosystem convenings, alumni hubs, and curated partner engagements, TEF connects entrepreneurs to capital, knowledge, supply chains, and markets at both local and global levels.
**Sustainability & Long-Term Value Creation**
TEF supports entrepreneurs to develop enterprises that are not only profitable, but also climate-conscious, community-driven, and future-ready. From green entrepreneurship and climate literacy modules to responsible growth frameworks, the Foundation equips entrepreneurs to manage risk, optimise resources, and build businesses that endure, generating long-term value for owners, employees, communities, and African economies.
—
**OUR APPROACH**
The Tony Elumelu Foundation operates Africa’s most comprehensive entrepreneurship delivery ecosystem, designed to identify, equip, fund, and scale entrepreneurs wherever they are on the continent. Our approach integrates digital infrastructure, physical ecosystem engagement, rigorous programme management, and long-term alumni support to ensure that entrepreneurship interventions do not end at access, but translate into durable businesses, jobs, and economic inclusion.
At the core of this model is a belief that Africa’s development challenge is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of empowering systems. TEF is committed to building Africa’s most scalable entrepreneurship delivery systems.
**Democratising Access to Digital Infrastructure through TEFConnect**
Through TEFConnect, Africa’s largest digital entrepreneurship platform, TEF delivers multilingual business education, application management, data capture, mentor matching, and alumni engagement at continental scale. This digital backbone enables the Tony Elumelu Foundation to reach entrepreneurs in remote, fragile, and under-served communities, removing geographic, financial, and informational barriers to opportunity. TEFConnect ensures that a young founder in a rural town can access the same quality of training, tools, and networks as one in a major commercial hub.
**TEF Business Management Training, Business Plans & Financials**
Every Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur undergoes structured Business Management Training covering venture creation, financial literacy, market development, operations, leadership, sustainability, and technology adoption. Participants translate this learning into comprehensive business plans and financial models, embedding discipline, accountability, and long-term thinking from inception. This capacity-first approach ensures that entrepreneurs are upskilled before capital is deployed.
**TEF Pitching Competition & Verification**
Entrepreneurs progress through competitive pitching, scoring, and verification processes that assess business feasibility, scalability, innovation, and social impact. Through TEF’s Know-Your-Entrepreneur (KYE) framework, entrepreneurs are vetted in partnership with financial institutions to validate identity, business registration, and banking credentials. This institutional rigor safeguards partners, strengthens transparency, and professionalises early-stage African entrepreneurship.
**Catalytic Seed Capital**
Participants who successfully complete the business management training, business plan and financial model development, pitching competition, and verification phases become eligible to receive non-refundable seed capital to launch or scale their enterprises. Capital is positioned not as an endpoint, but as a catalyst, unlocking production, employment, supply chains, and additional investment. This model has enabled Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs to move rapidly from ideation to revenue generation across all sectors.
**Mentorship**
Through TEFConnect, Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs are matched with global mentors, alumni coaches, and sector practitioners. This human infrastructure provides strategic guidance, peer learning, market intelligence, and psychological resilience, critical in high-risk operating environments.
**TEF Alumni Ecosystems**
TEF’s dynamic alumni network spans all 54 African countries, structured into national hubs led by elected alumni leadership. These hubs anchor TEF’s last-mile presence, hosting ecosystem mixers, policy dialogues, market linkages, investor engagements, and peer-driven growth platforms. Through this decentralised structure, TEF extends beyond programmes into permanent ecosystem building.
**Meet-ups, Ecosystem Engagements & TEF Forum**
Through country meet-ups, regional engagements, and the annual TEF Forum, the Tony Elumelu Foundation convenes entrepreneurs with governments, investors, corporates, and development institutions. These platforms elevate African entrepreneurs into policy, procurement, and investment conversations, ensuring that last-mile businesses are integrated into national and continental economic strategies.
**Research & Advocacy**
Through the TEF Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) function and the Africapitalism Institute, TEF tracks outcomes, conducts applied research, and feeds evidence into policy, programme design, and global development discourse. This ensures that TEF’s approach remains adaptive, accountable, and system-shaping.
—
**FOUNDER’S LETTER**
When my wife and I founded the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2010, we were guided by a simple but powerful conviction: that Africa’s transformation would not come from aid, but from Africans; empowered to build businesses, create jobs, and shape their own economic destinies. That belief stems from African activism, our philosophy that Africa’s private sector, and especially its entrepreneurs, must lead the continent’s development. It also gave birth to this institution.
Today, more than a decade into this journey, what stands before us is a Foundation that has transformed into an implementation engine; built to carry opportunity into communities, markets, and lives across all 54 African countries. In 2025, the Tony Elumelu Foundation further consolidated its role as a last-mile implementer: an institution structured not only to mobilise capital and partnerships, but to translate them into durable opportunity, measurable enterprise growth, and long-term economic participation.
Our work this year reaffirmed a central truth: development is not abstract. It happens where people live, work, and build. Across the continent, the Foundation’s presence extended deeper into secondary cities, rural communities, informal economies, and climate-exposed environments, bringing entrepreneurship support closer to the realities of African enterprise. This is where transformation takes root.
At the heart of this reach is TEFConnect, the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s proprietary digital platform and largest entrepreneurship ecosystem on the continent. Through it, more than 2.5 million Africans have accessed training, tools, and pathways to opportunity.
In 2025, we also looked deliberately to the future. As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes productivity, industry, and global competitiveness, the Tony Elumelu Foundation began embedding intelligence into its entrepreneurship architecture. We initiated the development of an AI-driven curriculum in collaboration with a globally respected institution, to ensure that African entrepreneurs are equipped not only to participate in the digital economy, but to help shape it. This direction has been reinforced through our partnership with Google.org, which expanded access to TEFConnect to a further one million Africans, and supported the redesign of the platform itself. Google engineers, designers, and policy specialists worked with the TEF team to strengthen TEFConnect’s architecture and intelligence, positioning it as a long-term digital backbone for African entrepreneurship.
Through this evolving ecosystem – digital, institutional, and human – the Tony Elumelu Foundation is embedding entrepreneurship more deeply into African economies. We are building systems that widen access, strengthen capability, and ensure continuity of support beyond individual programmes or cycles.
The impact of this approach continues to affirm our founding vision. Since 2015, we have trained millions of Africans, funded over 24,000 entrepreneurs, catalysed over 1.5 million jobs, and supported businesses that have generated billions of dollars in revenue. Behind these figures are families supported, communities stabilised, and futures restored.
But beyond the numbers, what encourages me most is what I see on the ground: women building enterprises where finance once did not reach; young people transforming local challenges into scalable solutions; entrepreneurs advancing food systems, healthcare delivery, energy access, environmental sustainability, and digital inclusion. These are the foundations of national resilience and continental prosperity.
In a world facing economic uncertainty, climate volatility, and demographic pressure, Africa’s greatest asset remains its people, particularly its young entrepreneurs. When we invest in them, we do more than support businesses. We unlock productivity. We reduce poverty. We create dignity. And we build the economic independence that true development requires.
As we look ahead, our responsibility is clear. We must continue to strengthen Africa’s entrepreneurship infrastructure. We must go deeper into underserved markets. We must translate partnerships into pipelines. And we must ensure that every promising African entrepreneur, regardless of geography or background, has a fair chance to succeed.
I am deeply grateful to our entrepreneurs, whose courage and creativity inspire everything we do; to our partners, who share our belief in Africa’s potential; and to our team, whose discipline and commitment turn vision into daily delivery.
Together, we are not only funding Africa’s future. We are executing it.
**Tony O. Elumelu, CFR**
Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation
—
**CO-FOUNDER’S LETTER**
When I look back on 2025, I am reminded once again why what we do at the Tony Elumelu Foundation matters.
Across our continent, we continued to see both the persistence of the familiar realities young entrepreneurs experience with running businesses, and our focus at TEF to stand firmly on the side of African entrepreneurs and to continue democratising access to opportunity in ways that are practical and sustainable, remained clear.
Our belief that Africa’s transformation will not be driven by aid alone, but by people: young women and men who are given the right tools, skills, and opportunities to turn ideas into impact has guided TEF from its earliest days when we committed to redefining how access is created, who it is created for, and that when young Africans are supported with the right mix of skills, capital, networks, and belief, they can transform not only their own lives, but the communities around them.
I am proud that for over a decade, we have walked alongside these young entrepreneurs. Over 2.5million young people have since been trained through our proprietary digital technology platform, TEFConnect, the largest networking and learning platform for African entrepreneurs. Time and again, we see that when entrepreneurs are equipped with knowledge, financial skills, business discipline, market insight, and leadership capacity, their confidence grows, their businesses strengthen, and their impact multiplies.
In 2025, we scaled up through our Flagship Entrepreneurship Programme; the Aguka programme, in partnership with the European Union, UNDP Rwanda, and the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and Sport, where we empowered and trained young Rwandans aged 18–30, many of whom were engaging with entrepreneurship for the first time; the BeGreen Programme, implemented alongside UNICEF GenU, the IKEA Foundation, and the Dutch Government, we deepened our focus on sustainability, supporting entrepreneurs who are building businesses that respond to climate challenges while creating economic opportunity.
The outcomes of our work are visible and measurable. To date, businesses supported through the Foundation have positively impacted over 4 million households and helped lift more than 2.1 million Africans above the poverty line. Behind these numbers is a young person with renewed hope, a family with greater stability, and a community benefiting from the luck we have democratised.
In 2025, women represented 46% of all our beneficiaries, the highest level of women’s participation in a programme of this scale. This is especially meaningful to me, because when women are empowered economically, the effects ripple outward into households, communities, and future generations.
None of this would be possible without the commitment of our partners, the dedication of our team, and most importantly, the courage of the entrepreneurs who choose to believe in themselves, even in the face of uncertainty.
Their journeys continue to inspire me, and they reaffirm why we remain steadfast in this mission. As we move forward in 2026, we will continue to invest in people, to expand access to opportunity, and to champion an African-led model of development that prioritises inclusive growth for all Africans.
The work continues, and so does our commitment.
**Dr. A.V Elumelu, OFR**
Co-Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation
—
**BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND ADVISORY BOARD**
**Tony O. Elumelu, CFR** – TEF Founder
African investor and philanthropist; Founder and Chairman of Heirs Holdings; Chair of UBA Group and Transcorp Group; TIME 100 Most Influential People (2020); Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (2022); Commander in the National Order of Gabonese Merit (2025).
**Dr. A.V Elumelu, OFR** – TEF Co-Founder
Leading voice in African healthcare; Director at Heirs Holdings; Board member of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center; Private Sector Champion for Immunisation in Africa by Gavi.
**Alexander Trotter** – TEF Trustee
Investor in public and private companies; former lawyer with Linklaters; co-founder of QFA; non-executive director of Heirs Holdings; trustee of the Harrow Club.
**Fatou Assah** – Advisory Board Member
Executive Director (Alt) at the IMF; former Global Business Manager at IFC; expert in financial inclusion and SME programmes.
**H. E. Badr Jafar** – Advisory Board Member
CEO of Crescent Enterprises; President of Crescent Petroleum; Chairman of Gulftainer; Special Envoy for Business and Philanthropy, UAE; COP28 Special Representative for Business and Philanthropy.
**Somachi Chris-Asoluka** – Chief Executive Officer
CEO of TEF; former Director of Partnerships and Communications; Board Director of WINGS; Co-Chair of UNICEF GenU Nigeria Steering Committee; member of Nigerian Presidential High-Level Advisory Council on Support to Women and Girls.
—
**MESSAGE FROM THE CEO**
Africa’s transformation will be driven not by ideas alone, but by execution, by institutions that can translate ambition into delivery at scale. In 2025, amid significant global and continental shifts, this belief guided our work as we deepened our role as Africa’s foremost platform for entrepreneurship-led development.
Across the continent, economic uncertainty, climate change, youth unemployment, and widening inequality reinforced a simple truth: sustainable, locally led solutions are not optional, they are essential. Entrepreneurship remains Africa’s most scalable development lever, and the Tony Elumelu Foundation exists to ensure that African entrepreneurs can access the tools, capital, networks, and confidence required to turn opportunity into impact with ripple effects across communities and the continent at large.
The year opened with unprecedented momentum. In January, over 200,000 entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries applied to the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, reaffirming both the scale of entrepreneurial ambition across Africa and the trust placed in TEF as a true distributor of luck and opportunity.
In March, we selected 3,000 additional entrepreneurs into the 11th cohort of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, advancing our flagship model of non-refundable seed capital, structured business training, mentorship, and post-programme support. Our disciplined operational systems, refined over more than a decade, enable us to deliver each programme cycle consistently, transparently, and at scale.
Beyond our flagship programme, 2025 saw the continued expansion of targeted, off-the-tarmac initiatives including Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (WE4A), BeGreen Africa, and the Aguka Ideation Programme in Rwanda. Designed to respond to specific sectoral, geographic, and demographic priorities, these initiatives reflect our commitment to meeting entrepreneurs where they are and supporting their growth and scale.
In 2025, we also welcomed new like-minded partners. In February, a US$ 6 million partnership with the UAE Office of Development Affairs and the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, announced in Dubai, further reinforced TEF’s position as Africa’s trusted last-mile implementer, capable of ensuring that the right resources reach the right entrepreneurs, even in the most remote locations across the continent.
While capital and training are critical, entrepreneurs thrive fastest within strong ecosystems. In 2025, TEF invested deliberately in ecosystem building through alumni visits, country-level engagements, and TEF Ecosystem Mixers across Africa, from Kenya and Guinea to the Central African Republic and beyond.
The TEF team was on the move throughout the year. We engaged closely with governments, development finance institutions, multilaterals, and private-sector partners across 18 African countries to co-create initiatives, mobilise capital, and embed entrepreneurs within broader economic ecosystems. These country-level stakeholder engagements are practical, outcome-driven, and designed to scale what works while addressing the unique challenges faced by entrepreneurs in different markets.
Our Founder Tony O. Elumelu, CFR’s receipt of the 2025 Appeal of Conscience Award was a moment of global recognition, not only of individual leadership, but of the enduring belief that African-led solutions are indispensable to Africa’s future.
At its core, the Tony Elumelu Foundation exists to solve a last-mile problem. Too often, capital, policy commitments, and development resources fail to reach the entrepreneurs who need them most. TEF bridges this gap by ensuring that opportunity reaches entrepreneurs across borders, sectors, and stages in ways that are accessible, practical, and impactful. This ability to deliver, consistently and credibly, remains our defining strength.
As we move into 2026, our ambition is renewed. I extend my deepest gratitude to our partners, stakeholders, alumni, and the exceptional TEF team whose dedication makes this work possible. Together, we are not only supporting entrepreneurs, we are building the foundations of Africa’s long-term prosperity.
**Somachi Chris-Asoluka**
Chief Executive Officer, Tony Elumelu Foundation
—
**THE TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION – 15 YEARS OF TRANSFORMING AFRICA**
A timeline of key milestones from 2010 to 2025 is detailed on pages 22-26 of the original report, including:
– **2010:** Foundation created.
– **2011:** Elumelu Professionals Programme launched; first impact investments.
– **2012:** Tony & Awele Elumelu Academic Prize launched; partnership with CCHub; African Exchange Holdings Ltd (AFEX) founded; Blair-Elumelu Fellowship Programme launched.
– **2013:** Africapitalism Institute launched; partnerships with ONE.org, Rockefeller Foundation, and others.
– **2014:** Announcement of US$100 million Entrepreneurship Programme.
– **2015:** Inaugural TEF Entrepreneurship Programme cohort of 1,000 entrepreneurs; first TEF Forum.
– **2016-2019:** Expansion of partnerships with ICRC, AFD, GIZ, UNDP, AfDB, and governments of Benin and Botswana; launch of TEFConnect.
– **2020-2023:** Partnerships with EU, BMZ, DEG, Google.org, USADF, BADEA; launch of BeGreen Africa and Aguka Programme; Harvard Business School case study.
– **2024:** 10th cohort announced; renewed partnerships with EU, Benin Republic, Google, and UAE; Harvard Business School case study.
– **2025:** 11th cohort of 3,000 entrepreneurs; new partnerships with DEG, Google.org, and UAE Office of Development Affairs; launch of green entrepreneurship programme with EU/OACPS/BMZ/GIZ; Founder receives Appeal of Conscience Award.
—
**IMPACT OF SELECT TEF PROGRAMMES (2010 – 2025)**
**Elumelu Professionals Programme (2011):** A 12-week graduate internship matching MBA students with African SMEs. **Key findings:** 83% of associates enhanced skills; 32% secured jobs in Africa; 100% of host companies reported positive business impact.
**African Exchange Holdings Ltd (AFEX) (2011):** A network of commodities exchanges. **Key findings:** Over 160,000 farmers reached; 200,000MT+ trade volume; 61 warehouses; nearly 97,000 farmers included in formal banking.
**Blair-Elumelu Fellowship Programme (2012):** Placed professionals in government agencies in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria to strengthen capacity. Established Public Private Partnership Unit in Sierra Leone.
**Early-Stage Innovation Support: TEF-CCHub Partnership (2012):** Provided seed funding of US$5,000 to 20 tech ideas. Supported ventures including NajjaTeenz, Church Plus, 500 Shops, AkiliPoll, Nearest Locator, OpenApps, Truppr, My African Canvas, Genii Games, Caban, Effko, and BudgIT.
—
*This concludes the full text extraction from the Tony Elumelu Foundation 2025 Annual Report. The original PDF contains additional sections (A Snapshot of 2025, Focus on AI, Diversity & Inclusion, Thought Leadership, Partnerships, SDGs, Financials, The Way Forward, Meet the TEF Squad) that were not fully captured in the provided text but are summarised in the table of contents and timeline.*
