Sinapi Aba migrates 26,000 women to SME sector
Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans Limited has moved 26,000 women from micro enterprises to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) over a five-year period.
This exceeded the target of 18,000 women the organisation planned to grow into SMEs under the five year project, Financial Inclusion for Enterprise Development (FINEDEV), it undertook supported by the Global Affairs Canada.
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The Chief Executive Officer of Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans Limited, Tony Fosu, who made this known at the FINEDEV Project Conference in Accra last Thursday, noted that the project was highly successful.
Grooming
“These ones are selected women we groomed from the micro to small and medium in various parts of the economy. This includes agriculture, manufacturing, trading and what makes it more unique is that we have only not given them financial services but also being able to develop innovations such as alternative collaterals which has always been a hindrance to women accessing credit,” he said.
He said the women were trained and then taken through mentorship programme where fledgling SMEs and women-led SMEs learnt from successful women-owned SMEs.
“So these women who have been very successful in SMEs over the years mentored, tutored and coached these new ones and helped them. Over the period we have been able to do three cohorts of over 250 women each and they have come out very successfully and the transformation and growth that we see in these women-led SMEs is very phenomenal,” he said.
Branches
Mr Fosu said the company had 44 branches across the country in all 16 regions and had about 600,000 clients, adding that 75 per cent of clients were females.
“We have been supported by Global Affairs, Canada, to implement this and it has been great; Women-led businesses that hitherto were just micro in stature and now they have been able to grow into SME status. This initiative was by Sinapi Aba and we have run that with the support of Global Affairs, Canada, and it has been so successful,” he said.
According to Mr Fosu, 69 per cent of the clientele of the firm were rural community based and that was very good because that was what brought transformation to the economy.
The Deputy Director of the Banking Supervision Department of the Bank of Ghana, Ismail Adam, commended Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans Limited and its partners; the Canadian Government, the Global Affairs Canada and Opportunity International Canada for the innovative FINEDEV Project aimed at building women inclusive Small and Mediums Enterprises across Ghana.
In an address read on her behalf, the Director of the Department of Gender of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Faustina Acheampong said women world wide were resilient, resourceful, economic agents.
In a presentation, the Chief Programmes Officer of Sinapi Aba Limited, Joyce Owusu-Dabo, said the mentorship programme carried out by the firm resulted in improved SME knowledge and skills-set for the women to better manage their businesses for growth.
