Red Cross, Afrxim commit over $100m to developing African entrepreneurship space

Africa Export and Import Bank (Afrexim) and Red Cross Nigeria have made commitments of over $100 million to developing the African entrepreneurship space, just as other development agencies such as United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), European Investment Bank and French Development Agency (AFD) have signified interest in partnering TEF on providing support for African entrepreneurs.

Afrexim’s Director and Global Head, Human Resources, Stephen Kauma, on the panel of “Capital-Destination Africa; Financing  Africa’s future” at the ongoing 2017 Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Forum, Saturday, announced the commitment of $100 million which will kick off in 2018 to support development the entrepreneurship space in Africa.

Eloin Filon, Head of Delegation, Red Cross Nigeria announced a commitment of $1 million to supporting Nigerian entrepreneurs on the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Programme on the panel of “Changing Africa’s Development Paradigm through Investments and Entrepreneurship”. There was no indication as to when the commitment goes into effect, however.

Red Cross Nigeria’s $1 million commitment is targeted towards entrepreneurs working in conflict areas in Nigeria, Filon said. He said that there is a possibility of scaling this across Africa to help develop and grow entrepreneurs working in conflict areas in other African countries.

Meanwhile, the foundation on Saturday signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with French Development Agency (AFD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to support entrepreneurs, to guarantee scheme for funding for the TEF entrepreneurs and other Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. The MoU would help the entrepreneurs leverage on the staff of AFD as mentors, as well as the technical knowledge of the development bank.

Parminder Vir, CEO of the foundation said the global agencies are partnering with the foundation based on the successes it had recorded in the last three years. She said those partnerships with these organisations would help the foundation scale the programme to help provide for those entrepreneurs who were left behind at the selection stages.

“We wanted to see how to use their (TEF)’s expertise and our expertise to scale up. My role as a donor is to provide support in form of funding for the entrepreneurs. On my side, what I will maybe provide is loans through local banks to the entrepreneurs.

“If all the 1,000 entrepreneurs want to borrow from commercial banks, AFD will take 70 per cent of the risk of the loans taken by TEF entrepreneurs. This will make it easier to borrow for the entrepreneurs from commercial banks,” Olivier Delfosse, Country Director, AFD explained, while speaking on the MoU.

Lamin Manneh, Director, African Regional Centre, UNDP, speaking on the MoU, said: We are attracted to TEF and we want to strengthen the partnership.” He said the agency’s role in the partnership include providing private sector development and providing direct support to the entrepreneurs. According to him, the agency is collaborating on providing continuous conducive environment for the entrepreneurs on the continent.

Manneh said the UNDP was using the current partnership with TEF to scale a similar partnership with the Rwandan government to create partnerships with private sector, government institutions and other stakeholders in delivering tremendous resources to the entrepreneurs on the TEF programme and others across Africa.