Accra, March 16, GNA – The National Board for Small Scale Industry (NBSSI) has lined up a number of interventions to support businesses of which about 60 percent were run by women entrepreneurs.
Madam Kosi Yankey, the Executive Director of NBSSI, said these interventions covered access to finance, access to technical support, access to business development services or capacity development support; or any need they might have for their businesses.
She said some people might want to start a business but have no idea as to where to go, or some might have started the business and did not have access to finance, and so the NBSSI facilitates it for them.
Madam Yankey said this during a panel discussion at a Policy Forum in Accra.
The Policy Forum was organized by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Ghana in partnership with the British Council.
The Forum, held under the theme: “Women’s Empowerment through Social Enterprise: The Role of Government, Civil Society, and the Private Sector”, registered stakeholders from academia, policymakers, women social entrepreneurs, development partners, and the private sector.
Its objectives were to create a platform to discuss the current constraints faced by women social entrepreneurs across the country specifically focusing on accessing finance, training and accessing markets.
Madam Yankey said what its Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Policy seeks to achieve was to actually have a plan to support the micro small and medium enterprises as well as entrepreneurs in the country.
She said it is important for people to plan; stating that “the yet-to-be-unveiled policy is actually a plan and a direction of how to bring sanity into the sector”.
“What are the needed support, being supporting local economic development, supporting access and finance, what is the roadmap to achieve that?”
The Executive Director said a lot of businesses did not have their books right and their governance structures were not in place, therefore, they needed to build strong structures, which then would lead to people bringing in funds to support them.
Mrs. Angela Asante, Presidential Advisor on Gender and Development, said women have always been the drivers of social change.
She said that in advanced countries all of their political, social and economic movement had been remits by women, as such, in Ghana women should speak with a collective voice; saying women must come together to set their targets.
Mrs. Asante said in various countries where women were supported to produce and be productive; the support might be in diverse ways and the social and economic outcomes were there to be seen.
She said another point was the whole idea of how we increase women political participation, which was extremely important; adding that “if you are not part of the decision-making table it would be a challenge to ensure policies are actually implemented”.
The Ghana Women in Social Enterprise Month is an initiative of GEN Ghana which aims to promote women in social enterprise to generate social good through sustainable business opportunities while fostering economic inclusion for women.
GEN Ghana aims to host a series of events in the month of March 2019 to put a spotlight on Women in Social Enterprise, while commemorating the International Women’s Month of Celebrations.
The Project seeks to expose opportunities and inspire women in social enterprise to realize their potential to start and grow their own business; and equip existing and aspiring female social entrepreneurs with practical tools, insights, experts, and resources to accelerate their successes.
It connects female entrepreneurs with a good broad community, and thriving, diverse and relevant networks; as well as engage and provide a platform for the social enterprise ecosystem- examining research, public policies and successful approaches towards promoting women social entrepreneurship in Ghana.
Source: GNA
