The Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) and Chairman, United Bank for Africa Group (UBA), Tony Elumelu   has proposed job creation, and inclusive growth, as priority areas for Africa’s development agenda to achieve peace and stability on the continent.

He spoke while on a high-level panel with President of Senegal, Macky Sall and President of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani. Other speakers on the panel included Defence Minister of France, Florence Parly and former President of Burundi and representative of the African Union, Pierre Buyoya

Elumelu cited the impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $100 million Entrepreneurship Programme as one of the practical ways the private sector in Africa can intervene to bring about peace and stability on the continent.

Speaking further, he referenced the partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to empower 100,000 young Africans in 10 years with a focus on the Sahel region for its first year.

Referring to TEF partnerships with other international development agencies such as Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ )and International Committee of the Red Cross( ICRC), Elumelu said: “activities and interventions like this will help to bring economic hope to people in this part of the world and they will become less involved in extremism.

“We support these young ones and we are beginning to see how their successes are translated into better and more secure communities.”

He pointed out that businesses cannot flourish where there is extremism and people are afraid for their lives. It will be even harder to attract the global private capital needed for large infrastructure projects and long-term investments which can help to fix our economy.

Elumelu called  on all stakeholders to collaborate to win the war on poverty and insecurity. “There is a lot we all can do – the private sector, government, and development partners – in making sure that we focus on winning the war on terrorism; that we make sure we stem the migration of our young people crossing the Mediterranean through harsh conditions, in search of hope, when indeed we have more opportunities and resources in our continent. We need to work together to ensure that extremism is totally annihilated in Africa. It is possible but we need to work together to achieve this.”