A panel session at the Brazilian Philanthropy Forum 2026 in São Paulo,
Among the voices from Africa was Tony Elumelu Foundation CEO Somachi Chris-Asoluka, who brought experience from the Foundation’s work with entrepreneurs across the continent into conversations about the future of philanthropy.
Her message was centred on a simple idea: African people, particularly young entrepreneurs, should not be seen only as recipients of development support. They should have the resources and opportunity to shape the continent’s future themselves.
“We believe that the transformation of the African continent will not come from the private sector, the corporate, or government, and it will not come from international development agencies, but it will come from our entrepreneurs,” Somachi said.
The focus on entrepreneurship reflects the realities of a continent with a very young population. With Africa’s median age at 17, the demand for jobs and economic opportunities is growing.
“These young people need economic opportunities. They need jobs, and they cannot wait for these jobs to come,” she said.
This is where philanthropy, in her view, can play a different role. Rather than only responding to immediate needs, philanthropic capital can help people build businesses, create jobs and generate income that continues circulating within their communities.
Since 2015, the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship programme has trained 2.5 million young Africans and provided more than US$130 million in direct funding to 27,000 entrepreneurs.
The businesses supported through its programmes have collectively created 1.5 million jobs and generated more than US$4 billion in revenue.
“This is revenue that did not exist before we intervened in these young people,” Somachi said.
The figures formed part of a wider argument about what philanthropic funding can make possible when it is directed towards agency and opportunity.
The conversation also touched on the importance of understanding local realities when working at scale. The Foundation operates across all 54 African countries, but Somachi noted that Africa cannot be treated as one uniform market.
Countries differ in infrastructure, regulations, languages, cultures, and economic conditions. Still, she said, entrepreneurs across regions share many of the same basic needs.
“African entrepreneurs are no different from the entrepreneurs here in Brazil and in Latin America,” she said. “All entrepreneurs need the same things.”
They need access to finance, networks, markets and people willing to support their ideas.
For Somachi, achieving scale does not necessarily mean providing exactly the same intervention everywhere. Organisations need to remain flexible enough to respond to the communities they work with while staying focused on their broader goals.
Technology was another part of the discussion, particularly its potential to expand access to opportunity.
Through TEFConnect, the Foundation links entrepreneurs with mentors, investors, business information, markets and other opportunities. But Somachi cautioned that technology should not simply reproduce inequalities that already exist.
“We don’t want to use technology to deepen divides that already exist, to deepen inequalities that already exist,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re using technology to make opportunity more inclusive and more widespread.”
That thinking has influenced how the platform is designed. Entrepreneurs living with disabilities account for 15 per cent of the Foundation’s entrepreneurs, while changes to the platform have also been made in response to barriers experienced by women.
After the Foundation found that far fewer women were completing applications than men, it introduced self-paced learning to better accommodate childcare and household responsibilities.
For philanthropy organisations, Somachi also stressed the importance of understanding and documenting their own impact, regardless of their size.
“Impact should be in the DNA of the organisation,” she said, encouraging organisations to collect data, keep records and create ways of showing the change taking place through their work.
But demonstrating impact should go alongside a willingness to keep learning.
“Never be satisfied or complacent with what you know,” she said.
Her contribution to the Forum also opened a wider conversation about partnerships between Africa, Latin America and other parts of the Global South.
Africa, she argued, should not be viewed only through the challenges it faces. Its young population, entrepreneurs, markets and ideas also make it an important source of solutions and partnerships.
“Africa is the future for the world,” Somachi said. “And we’re open for business, open for partnerships, open for investment, open for dialogue.”
Held on 27 August under the theme “Philanthropy: Between Essence and Reinvention,” the Forum brought together voices from across the philanthropic sector at a time when technology, inequality, climate change and shifting economic realities are forcing organisations to rethink how they create lasting impact.
The message was as much about collaboration as it was about philanthropy. Stronger relationships between regions can create opportunities to share knowledge, connect capital and learn from approaches developed in different contexts.
“We can achieve much more by coming together than doing it in isolation,” Somachi said.
For philanthropy, that means looking beyond the act of giving and paying greater attention to what happens after resources reach communities: whether people gain agency, whether local solutions can grow, and whether partnerships can help sustain the change.
The discussions in São Paulo placed those questions within a broader Global South conversation, with African experiences contributing to a debate about how philanthropy can remain rooted in its purpose while adapting to a changing world.
