Last week I had the pleasure to co-chair the World Economic Forum in Kigali. During the event The Tony Elumelu Foundation released the ‘Unleashing Africa’s Agricultural Entrepreneurs’ report.
Agriculture accounts for 32 per cent of Africa’s gross domestic product, and employs over 65 per cent of its labour force. The sector offers the highest potential for sustainable and scalable socioeconomic transformation as growth in agriculture GDP results in a significant increase in income for the lowest income segment of the population employed by the sector.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation recognises that one of the key challenges facing Africa’s entrepreneurs is the state of the overall enabling environment in which they operate. Therefore, in addition to providing direct support to select African entrepreneurs, the Foundation’s policy research and advocacy arm – engaged the over 300 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs in agriculture to ascertain the key challenges they face, and along with agriculture experts, develop solutions to improve their competitiveness.
The Foundation’s role is to provide unique insight using The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP) data to complement existing research in agriculture in order to bring about additional improvement in agricultural policies and practices. I hope you find this report helpful in your various endeavours as we work with our public leaders to transform agriculture in ways that will lead Africa’s economic transformation.