Greetings from beautiful Mauritius!
This morning, I was honoured to deliver remarks as part of the opening session of the African Union’s “African Economic Platform”, Africa’s version of the World Economic Forum. In its mission to catalyse economic transformation in Africa, I recognise my own economic philosophy of Africapitalism.
I emphasised that Africa’s economic renaissance will be realised as Africa’s private and public sectors prioritise Africapitalism’s principles of:
i) Long term investments in strategic sectors such as power, transportation, infrastructure, etc.;
ii) Local Value creation through intra-Africa processing of our raw materials;
iii) Entrepreneurship; and
iv) Government enabling support and incentives that encourage long term private investments.
At the Tony Elumelu Foundation we are empowering entrepreneurs (who form a key segment of Africa’s private sector) to play a more pronounced role in the continent’s socio-economic advancement.
We are setting the stage for a new mindset in Africa where our economic renaissance is internally driven by our energetic and enterprising youth.
On Wednesday March 22nd, we will announce our next cohort of 1000 2017 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs whose ideas will transform Africa. This will bring the number of young African entrepreneurs we are supporting to 3000 in three short years.
African unity should be much more than a routine gathering of political leaders and bureaucrats. African unity should be about shared challenges, shared investments, shared commitment to each other and to the next generation of entrepreneurs that can transform our continent.
African Unity should be about deliberate enabling and empowering of entrepreneurs from across the continent who possess the ability to come up with innovative, home grown and bottom-up solutions for the seemingly intractable challenges that we continue to face.
African unity must start from the realisation that nobody but us will develop Africa. And that Africa’s destiny lies in the hands of all of us, Africans.
My African Dream is to see that everyone – regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion or nationality – has access to opportunities to make their own lives better, either through the availability of stable, wage-paying employment or by becoming entrepreneurs and building businesses of their own.