Tony Elumelu, Chairman, Heirs Holdings |
Ladies and
Gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you this morning for the fifth
‘Opportunity Africa Conference. I want to start by thanking Senator Chris Coons and his wonderful
staff for inviting me to his home state to speak with his constituents. I’ve
met with Senator Coons in Washington but nothing speaks more warmly of
friendship than an invitation to one’s home. I also want to thank you, Senator,
for your commitment to the continent and people of Africa.
I will start
by saying that on the surface, Senator Coons and I appear very different. He
was born and raised in the United States, and I, in Nigeria. He has spent many
years as a public sector leader, while I have focused my career almost
exclusively in the private sector. And we have both achieved much success in
our chosen endeavours.
However, if
you look more closely, we are not so different. We were both born in 1963.
And we share
a deep belief in the inherent value and dignity of the African people and a
commitment to DELIBERATELY and UNAPOLOGETICALLY, unlocking the potential of the
continent. The Senator’s interest in Africa, began as a student when he wrote
critically about the Apartheid government in South Africa and the unfortunate
U.S. foreign policy of “Constructive Engagement” with this racist government
and through his experiences, living in Kenya.
Both of
these experiences influenced how he approached the concept of governance
including in the United States itself, and caused him to change his political
affiliation.
So, Africa
CHANGED YOU, Senator, in a very fundamental way, and now you are giving back by
using your platform in the U.S. Senate to help CHANGE AFRICA and to CHANGE THE
NARRATIVE ABOUT AFRICA! So, in a word, a key theme in the Senator’s life has
been “CHANGE.” In my life, the key theme, in a word is “MADE.”
I was born
in Africa, educated in Africa and have spent my whole career working in Africa.
You might say, I was MADE IN AFRICA and I MADE IT IN AFRICA! And like the good
Senator, I seek to CHANGE THE NARRATIVE ABOUT AFRICA from one of UNDERDEVELOPMENT
and OVERWHELMING POVERTY to one of OPPORTUNITY AND PROSPERITY. For too long and
for too many people the continent “Africa,” evokes images of poverty, disease,
hunger and backwardness. Even worse these images conjure a sense of
hopelessness!
People
believed similar things about China, Brazil and India not too long ago, but now
that these countries are economic powerhouses, the narrative has changed.
Senator
Coons and I, and I believe everyone here, want the same for Africa’s 54
countries.
And yet it
is true that, today, Africa is home to:
– Two thirds
of the world’s HIV/AIDs infected persons and 90% of its orphans;
– 90 million
kids who are out of school;
– Over a
dozen undemocratic or insufficiently democratic governments;
– Millions
of people who are caught in civil conflicts and vulnerable to starvation.
Wanting
change should not blind us to the current realities; indeed these facts should
make us all ever more committed to achieving change.
But that is
not the whole story about Africa.
– Africa is
the cradle of mankind and ancient civilizations;
– It is home
to amazing cultures, that have touched the world in music, art and literature;
– It gave us
the extraordinary example of Nelson Mandela;
– However,
most importantly for me, Africa is a continent of a generation of
entrepreneurs.
Home
probably to the largest group of entrepreneurs on this planet. Africa is also
the home of a young and growing middle-class that has strong purchasing power.
A middle-class that likes baseball caps, iPhones, Kias, CNN and Beyonce. In
other words, in Africa lies a huge growing market for American products.
Clearly,
over the last two decades, something has been happening in Africa! SUCCESS is
happening in Africa! Opportunity is happening in Africa. And I am living proof
of this!
I’ve enjoyed
success in banking, but also in growing agricultural products for our people,
providing healthcare, investing in power to drive our economy, resources that
can bring value to our continent. And ALL in Africa! I have been very
successful in these sectors using an economic philosophy I developed called
Africapitalism.
Africapitalism
advocates long-term investment in strategic sectors that generate both economic
dividends for investors and social dividends for society. So, I am a successful
Africapitalist today, but I started out just like one of those young men and
women in the clip you just saw of the beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu
Foundation’s $100 million Entrepreneurship Program. The continent of Africa has
given me so much!
And I
understand and embrace the responsibility to GIVE BACK to the continent by
PAYING IT FORWARD and creating more Tony Elumelus to help transform Africa.
Through the
Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $100 million Entrepreneurship Program, we seek to
INSTITUTIONALISE LUCK and DEMOCRATISE OPPORTUNITY by giving every budding or
aspiring African entrepreneur the chance to benefit from it. It is open to all
African citizens, regardless of age, gender, nationality or commercial sector. We
are training, mentoring and seeding 10,000 African business over the 10 years,
creating 1 million new jobs and $10 billion in additional revenue across Africa
in an effort to ignite the economic transformation of Africa.
These
entrepreneurs will achieve financial success while creating home-grown solutions
to local problems in core areas such as food, education, health, water and
sanitation etc., delivering African solutions to African problems. Or, in other
words helping, to implement the Sustainable Development Goals from the private
sector. This is the story I want to tell about Africa. This is the new
narrative of Africa. I travel all over the world, preaching that Africa is
“OPPORTUNITY.” And if I am the opportunity preacher then Senator Coons is the
Choir Master because for the last 5 years, he has been organizing this
conference that could not be more aptly named and reflective of what is
happening on the continent “OPPORTUNITY AFRICA.” He is not only bringing that
message to Delaware, he is taking it to Washington DC. And he is demonstrating
it through concrete policy actions. U.S. policy towards Africa has largely and
steadily been improving since the late 1990s. It’s not been perfect but it’s
gotten better with each successive President since William Jefferson Clinton.
Looking
back, from the 1960’s through most of the 1980s, U.S. Foreign policy towards
Africa focused on supporting despots in the Cold War alliances and then,
following the collapse of the Soviet empire, wrote Africa off completely in the
1990s.
However,
during his second term in the late 90s, President Clinton began to engage with
the continent and even came on a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa, something
no U.S. President had done in almost two decades. It was also in the final year
of the Clinton presidency that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act was
passed, which helped to lay the foundation for a new US-Africa relationship;
one based not on humanitarian assistance, but on partnership for mutual
economic benefit – and one that allows entrepreneurship to be the engine of social
development.
President
George W. Bush built on this with the AGOA renewals and enhancements and the
creation of the Millennium Challenge Account which was a multi-billion dollar
programme to incentivise African countries to embrace democratic reforms and
govern justly, in return for US assistance to develop their infrastructure and
commercial sectors.
President
Bush must also be credited for the multi-billion global AIDS program that has
helped to keep millions of HIV-infected persons healthy and by extension
Africa’s workforce and economies healthy.
President
Barack Obama upheld the previous initiatives and created the Feed the Future
Global Food Security programme to boost agriculture in 20 countries, a sector
that delivers 3 times the development gains as any other investment in
development and of course, he created the Power Africa initiative, which seeks
to expand access to electricity for the 600 million African who lack access to
power today, through public and private sector partnerships, an agenda that
Senator Coons championed to preserve, through passage of the Electrify Africa
Act in the U.S. Senate. And it had leveraged nearly $150 billion in private
capital to address this critical development issues. That is what I call
“Shared Purpose,” a key characteristic of Africapitalism. And I know that if we
get power right in Africa, it will unlock millions of new jobs and economic
growth in multiple sectors by reducing the cost of doing business and
attracting new investments. So, U.S. policy towards Africa over the last two
decades has been improving, regardless of which party has held the presidency.
As you go
into your presidential elections this year, I urge Americans to ensure that the
candidates and new Administration seek to build on this progress. Both
candidates are promising change in key policy areas, especially in the foreign
policy arena. But I want to say to you today, that SOME THINGS DON’T NEED TO
CHANGE! What they need, is to be expanded and scaled up. In other words, we
need MORE U.S. engagement in Africa through mutually beneficial trade and
investment.
Incidentally,
that is exactly what I, and 200 other US and African political and business
leaders, will be discussing next week at the US-Africa Business Forum in New
York – how to strengthen mutually beneficial economic ties between the African
and American peoples.
We also need
more security co-operation that protects both Americans and Africans from the
undesirable elements of this world – and where the root cause is poverty, that
I believe can only be truly fought by giving people the economic tools to
better themselves. And, very importantly, we need to work in “Shared Purpose”
on complex solutions to complex challenges in Africa.
So when you
meet, write, call and email your political candidates and representatives, of
all races, and the elected President in November, tell them that when it comes
to Africa, you want “More.” By “More”, I mean more engagement, more positively
impactful policies and more development and commercial investment in Africa.
In closing,
I want to thank you all for coming out today to EXPLORE AND FURTHER OPPORTUNITY
IN AFRICA. I am an unashamed optimist and I believe that working together, in
“Shared Purpose” we can help usher in economic transformation that will
catapult Africa into a strong regional player in the 21st century global
economy. And going back to the defining themes that illustrate the impact that
Africa has had on Senator Coons and myself, I believe that we will collectively
be able to look back, in 2030, and know that while Africa “MADE US” or “CHANGED
US,” we have together “MADE CHANGE” happen in Africa and for Africans, through
a virtuous cycle of opportunity and prosperity.
Thank you.
Tony O. Elumelu, CON
Chairman, Heirs Holdings & Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
Chairman, Heirs Holdings & Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
Culled from heirsholdings.com
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