765 MSMEs graduate from economic diversification project
Some 765 micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have graduated from a two-year intensive training programme under the Economic Diversification Building Business Project at Ellembelle in the Western Region.
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The project equipped participants made up of women and youth selected from 10 coastal communities with entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and technical skills to enable them start, nurture and manage their own businesses.
It is aimed at reducing poverty and socio-economic challenges in the project's catchment area by creating a number of job opportunities in agriculture, agro-processing, artisanal trade and skilled labour.
It is an initiative of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) in partnership with Eni Ghana and other stakeholders.
Successful endeavor
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GEA, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, in a speech read on her behalf at the graduation ceremony, observed that the project has been a successful endeavor, providing vital entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and technical skills training to MSMEs in the Ellembelle District.
“We are proud to celebrate the graduation of 765 beneficiaries who have completed their apprenticeship and advanced technical skills training.
“This project has empowered them with valuable skills to start and manage their own businesses, thereby creating job opportunities and improving their livelihoods,” she said.
She noted that enhancing the capacity of MSMEs to improve their quality and productivity for job creation was a priority for the GEA because MSMEs were the backbone of the economy and contribute about 70 per cent to the nation’s GDP.
She said youth unemployment was one of the biggest challenges of the governments in Africa and Ghana was no exception.
ILO data
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), about 60 per cent of Ghana’s youth are underemployed, 12 per cent are unemployed; and the remaining 28 per cent are not in the labour force.
Nearly 58.6 per cent of the unemployed youth are located in urban areas and 41.4 per cent are in rural areas.
The unemployment challenge has been aggravated by the lack of appropriate vocational/technical skills, appropriate technology, access to market, access to relevant business information and start-up capital for young people.
Job opportunities
Mrs Yankey-Ayeh stated that as part of the government’s efforts to create job opportunities and reduce unemployment in Ghana the GEA, in partnership with Eni Ghana and its partners in 2020 launched the two-year project.
According to her, the programme adopted an integrated development approach to foster innovation and embraced new skills and technologies to enable beneficiaries start and manage their operations more efficiently through pragmatic entrepreneurial, technical skills and business management.
The implementation of the intervention ensured that participants in 10 targeted coastal communities in the Ellembelle District within the Area of Influence of Eni Ghana’s operations.