The Queen of the Netherlands, Queen Maxima, has engaged small-scale business entrepreneurs in Labadi, Accra, on their financial health, providing a platform for the entrepreneurs to share their experiences and challenges with savings, access to loans and insurance.
The visit focused on understanding how the entrepreneurs could manage their finances, the support they could receive from financial institutions, the usage of technology in their businesses and the difficulties they might encounter in achieving financial stability.
The interaction provided an opportunity to highlight the financial realities facing small business owners, including access to finance, savings, responsible borrowing, pensions, budget, financial planning and the need for sustainable financial solutions to support their businesses.
During the interaction with the entrepreneurs, the Queen listened to their experiences and concerns about sustaining their businesses while meeting their household needs.
The visit formed part of the Queen's four-day visit to Ghana in her capacity as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA).
Her choice of Ghana for the visit is based on the fact that Ghana leads the way in Africa in terms of financial inclusion, with over 80 per cent of adults having a current account, as well as access to loans, savings products and insurance.
Entrepreneurs
During the interaction, the Queen enquired from the entrepreneurs whether they had health insurance, savings, pensions, as well as budget plans.
In response to the Queen’s questions, the entrepreneurs, most of whom were traders and artisans who save and receive loans from Opportunity International, said even though they saved, it was not in huge amounts because the daily expenses of running their families took a chunk of their daily earnings.
Most of them said the only insurance they had was the National Health Insurance Scheme, which they expressed concern that it only catered for a small fraction of their health expenses when they fell sick.
Regarding the use of technology in their businesses, they all said they had mobile money accounts; however, they did not accept payments through it.
On pensions, most of them said they did not save towards it.
Queen Maxima had similar conversations earlier in the day with two market women at the Makola Market, who use the fintech app, Affinity, in their business and farmers and workers at a fruit processing factory at Adeiso in the Eastern Region, and the responses received from them were similar to those of the entrepreneurs.
She also visited Manna Mission Hospital at Teshie to interact with staff and patients there about the remote monitoring of high blood pressure and diabetes via an app, NkwaPlus, developed by PharmAccess.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and staff of Opportunity International were present at Labadi to receive the Queen.
