{"id":4180,"date":"2026-07-17T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/?p=4180"},"modified":"2026-07-11T22:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T22:10:08","slug":"youth-dividend-meet-the-africans-betting-big-on-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/2026\/history-makers\/youth-dividend-meet-the-africans-betting-big-on-young-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth Dividend: Meet the Africans Betting Big on Young People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Investing in young people is investing in the future (Image: Joshua Duneebon<\/a> @ Unsplash)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Visionaries Bet on the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Elumelu just did it again. His foundation handed $5,000 each to 3,200 young entrepreneurs across Africa. No strings attached. No repayment. Just capital and a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. Hundreds of millions of young people who will define the continent’s economic future. For decades, the story of investing in that potential has been dominated by foreign aid and international development agencies. That story is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Western funding pulls back (USAID’s dismantling and shrinking US foreign aid budgets have already left gaps across the continent) a different kind of capital is stepping in: African wealth, deployed by Africans, for African youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Elumelu, Aliko Dangote, Strive Masiyiwa, Mo Ibrahim, and Patrice Motsepe have built some of the continent’s most ambitious philanthropic operations, pouring billions of dollars into scholarships, seed grants, mentorship, and leadership pipelines. Their strategies are not uniform. One spreads small grants across tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, another selects just three fellows a year for an elite leadership track. But the underlying bet is the same: that homegrown capital, unattached to foreign political cycles, might be Africa’s most reliable engine for developing its next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the continent, a small group of wealthy Africans have turned personal fortunes into youth-focused giving machines. They fund school fees. They seed startups. They train future leaders. Together, they’ve touched millions of young lives. Here’s a look at who they are, how they’re spending their fortunes, and what it means as the world’s approach to funding Africa’s youth quietly shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Elumelu: The $100 Million Grant Machine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elumelu started small in 2015. He promised $100 million over ten years to African entrepreneurs. He beat that promise. His foundation has now funded over 24,000 entrepreneurs. It trained 2.5 million more through its free online hub, TEFConnect. Each funded entrepreneur gets $5,000 in seed capital, business training, and a mentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results add up. Those entrepreneurs created 1.5 million jobs. They generated $4.2 billion in revenue. Nearly half of all beneficiaries are women. Elumelu calls it “democratising luck.” The numbers back him up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aliko Dangote: Africa’s Biggest Private Education Bet<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangote just made history. In December 2025, he launched a trillion-naira education fund. That’s over $650 million, spread across ten years. The plan is bold. It will support 45,000 students in year one. That number climbs to 155,000 a year by year four. Over the decade, 1.3 million young Nigerians will benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fund has four parts. STEM Scholars will back 30,000 university students yearly. Technical Scholars will support 5,000 vocational students. Girls Scholars will fund 20,000 secondary school girls. A teacher-training arm will upskill 10,000 educators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangote didn’t stop there. He pledged 25% of his personal wealth to his foundation. That commitment outlives him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strive Masiyiwa: Three Decades, 400,000 Lives Changed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masiyiwa started early. He and his wife Tsitsi founded the Higherlife Foundation in 1996, during Zimbabwe’s HIV\/AIDS crisis. Thirty years later, the foundation has reached over 400,000 learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approach is layered. The Capernaum Scholarship supports orphaned and vulnerable children. The Joshua Nkomo Scholarship rewards academic talent. The Akello digital platform has taught over 34,600 students online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money backs the mission. The Masiyiwas committed $100 million to rural development. They added $60 million more for healthcare and crisis response. Every year, 68,000 young people join their mentorship programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mo Ibrahim: Small Numbers, Sharp Focus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mo Ibrahim plays a different game. His foundation doesn’t chase volume. It chases quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2011, the Ibrahim Leadership Fellowships have picked just three young Africans a year. Winners spend twelve months inside the African Development Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, or the International Trade Centre. Each fellow earns a $100,000 stipend and direct mentorship from top African institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 43 people have made the cut since the programme began. That scarcity is the point. Ibrahim is building a pipeline of future presidents, ministers, and policy leaders; not a mass movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrice Motsepe: Betting on STEM and Small Business<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motsepe took the Giving Pledge in 2013. He and his wife, Precious Moloi-Motsepe, became the first African family to promise away half their wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their foundation, started in 1999, focuses on bursaries and grassroots development. Over the past five years, it has awarded more than 1,800 STEM bursaries to students from poor families. Separately, it channelled R200 million into development forums across South Africa’s nine provinces, plus another R100 million for wider projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2021, the Milken-Motsepe Prize has pushed further. It rewards African innovators solving real problems in agriculture, energy, fintech, and AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bigger Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These five men prove a point. African wealth can build African futures. Their methods differ. Elumelu spreads small grants wide. Ibrahim invests deep in a select few. Dangote and Masiyiwa mix scholarships with skills training. Motsepe backs both students and startups. But the goal stays the same. Give young Africans capital, skills, and a shot at success. The continent’s next generation of founders, leaders, and innovators is already cashing in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing also matters here. Foreign aid to African youth entrepreneurs is shrinking fast. The US gutted USAID in 2025. It followed up in 2026 by moving to shut down the US African Development Foundation, an agency that had handed out $265 million in grants and touched 2 million lives directly over four decades. Programmes across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe are ending. Total US foreign aid fell from $68 billion in 2024 to $32 billion in 2025. The cuts hit startups hard. Kenya alone faces a $100 million funding gap, with its startup economy projected to shrink 15% within three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some foreign funders remain active. The Mastercard Foundation still runs its Young Africa Works strategy across 30-plus African countries. Its FAST programme hands young entrepreneurs up to $15,000 in fresh 2026 rounds. But even these players face pressure. Philanthropies worldwide are pulling back budgets amid economic and political uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gap creates an opening. Homegrown philanthropy doesn’t depend on foreign political cycles. Elumelu, Dangote, Masiyiwa, Ibrahim, and Motsepe answer to no foreign government. Their money won’t vanish because an election changes policy in Washington or Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not to say local giving replaces aid dollar for dollar. Foreign aid still funds public health, food security, and infrastructure at a scale private foundations can’t match. And homegrown philanthropy carries its own limits, as much of it stays concentrated in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, leaving other regions underserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the direction is clear. As foreign money retreats, African billionaires are filling more of the gap themselves. Watch this space. The next decade of youth investment is gearing up to look far more African than it ever has before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visionaries Bet on the Future Tony Elumelu just did it again. His foundation handed $5,000 each to 3,200 young entrepreneurs across Africa. No strings attached. No repayment. Just capital and a chance. Africa is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. Hundreds of millions of young people who will define the continent’s economic future. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1455],"tags":[1459,1464,1457,1465,313,1462,1463,1460,1458,1456,1461],"class_list":["post-4180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-makers","tag-africanentrepreneurs","tag-africanphilanthropy","tag-alikodangote","tag-cradleandhope-2","tag-feelnubia","tag-investinafrica","tag-moibrahim","tag-patricemotsepe","tag-strivemasiyiwa","tag-tonyelumelu","tag-youthempowerment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4183,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions\/4183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}