Africa Skills Hub in partnership with World University Service Canada (WUCS) Ghana, has launched the Young Female Business Initiative (YBSI) to support young women in business.
The initiative is to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the beneficiaries and provide relief for their businesses and households.
The YBSI will provide direct financial and market linkages that will help female entrepreneurs stay afloat to navigate the economy and enhance their profitability during and after the pandemic.
Over the years, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have played and continue to play a critical role in Ghana’s socio-economic development by producing critical goods and services, creating jobs and helping to reduce poverty and promote economic growth.
It is estimated that MSMEs represent about 85 percent of Ghana’s private sector and contribute about 70 percent of annual GDP.
Speaking at the launch of the program, co-founder of Africa Skills Hub, Daniel Amoako Antwi stated that, the initiative will also focus on building a strong digital presence in the post Covid-19 world for MSMEs.
“We are encouraging businesses on the need to embrace technology in the post Covid-19 world. We want to really ensure that businesses will look out for what we call digital customer.”
The Country Director of World University Service of Canada, Emelia Ayipoi Asamoah said her organization is always ready to give full support to their local partners to be able to take advantage of such initiatives.
“For us we a non-profit organization so a lot of our work is geared towards supporting our partners. Our work is also harnessing capacity and in most cases conducting research to find out opportunities that exist that our local partners can take advantage of. We may not directly work with the African Free Trade but with our local partners, we are always available to provide them with the capacity to take advantage of such initiatives.”
Participants will go through a a pitch competition to be able to access the Africa Skills Hub White hall MSME fund, get introduced to other investors and be opened to other available opp opportunities available.
Businesses will be required to formalize their operations which will be beneficial to the government as part of the initiative. Partner organizations such NBSSI, NEIP, Ministry of Business Development, will be leveraged to build a stronger network and ensure an equitable reach of government opportunities and services to these MSMEs.
