Sahara Foundation Targets 12m beneficiaries through extrapreneurship platforms

Sahara Foundation has adopted the entrepreneurship strategy to drive integrated economic empowerment programmes through strategic partnerships and support for innovative as well as scalable business ventures.

Over the next four years, Sahara Foundation plans to directly impact 12,000,000 beneficiaries and also create value through the identification, development and maintenance of relevant stakeholders through which beneficiaries can grow and sustain businesses. This will be achieved through skills acquisition training, mentoring and access to a network of committed stakeholders.

Sahara Foundation is the Corporate Responsibility vehicle of Sahara Group, Africa’s leading energy and infrastructure conglomerate with operations in eight (8) countries across four (4) continents.

Tonye Cole, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Sahara Group, explained that the core of the entrepreneurship framework is “to produce a platform that finds, creates and connects young entrapreneurs in emerging markets’’ adding that this would be achieved by leveraging on Sahara Foundation’s key strength of bringing together various committed stakeholders and promoting cross- sectoral collaboration.

‘Extrapreneurship’ involves creating value through leveraging internal and external strengths to drive cross-sectoral collaboration. This is made possible by connecting the right people and organizations towards providing sustainable solutions to global social problems.  Unlike entrapreneurship which focuses mainly in income generation, extraprenuership is centred on wealth creation and preservation.

Cole said the shift in Sahara Foundation’s focus is modelled after Sahara Group’s strategy. “Sahara has evolved from a fledgling entrapreneurial business which began 20 years ago into a world class conglomerate with operations across the energy value chain including upstream, midstream, downstream operations. We have leveraged our network of committed stakeholders to expand the business, embrace opportunities and grow the franchise sustainably over the past two decades,” he added.

Sahara Foundation aims to drive the entrepreneurship programme through the establishment of community/academic hubs and the social media. These platforms will provide resource materials and inspire networking and collaboration on a mass scale for local, regional, national and global beneficiaries.

“You cannot even imagine the multiplier effect we are hoping to generate with the new model as young business owners are exposed to boundless opportunities that exist within the various hubs and our dedicated web portal where leading business individuals and organisations will be available to guide and link budding entrepreneurs. We are mostly excited about the fact that this is a sustainable approach to empowering youths and engendering economic growth and development,” stated Cole.

Sahara will in the coming weeks unveil various projects that will kick start its entrepreneurship strategy in its locations across the globe.