About 50 women-led social enterprises are to benefit from a two-months intensive training to become more investor ready and help them access funding to enhance their operations.

Dubbed, Social Enterprise Women Business Accelerator, the initiative seeks to focus on businesses that have a clear positive social and environmental mission.

It is an initiative of the British Council Ghana in partnership with the Social Enterprise Ghana (SE Ghana).

3rd leading economy

A press release issued on January 27 in Accra, quoted the Executive Director of Social Enterprise Ghana, Mr Edwin Zu-Cudjoe, of saying that “Ghana has been ranked as the world’s third leading economy with the most women business owners over 36 per cent.

“This is great news for us and what we do at Social Enterprise Ghana. This accelerator will support women social enterprises to deliver even more social and environmental impact through their businesses.”

The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on women entrepreneurs was severe and support programmes like these can help build the resilience of these businesses.

During the programme, a needs assessment of the businesses will identify gaps that they need to address in order to become eligible for funding.

The accelerator programme will support the women to fill in the gaps through interactive learning workshops, targeted coaching and expert support.

Participants will be taken through sessions on improving their business model, proper bookkeeping and financial management systems, growth strategy and marketing including customer acquisition strategy.

Investor partners including banks, angel networks and SME growth financiers will also assess the businesses for investment and provide feedback and support.

COVID-19 challenge

The release also quoted the Director of Programmes and Partnerships, British Council Ghana, Chikodi Onyemerela of saying that the British Council Ghana has supported social enterprises and women-led businesses over the years through diverse programmes.

“Our research on social enterprise and gender has provided valuable insights to the ecosystem.

“We are delighted through this programme to bring all these together by enabling women social-enterprises who are building their businesses despite the challenges of COVID-19 grow their businesses and their social and environmental impact,” it added.

The expected outcome of the programme is for investor partners; ShEquity, ABSA Bank, ACCESS Bank, Grofin, Built, Lady Angels Network and other investors to interact with and invest in the businesses of the social enterprises.

About Social Enterprise Ghana

Social Enterprise Ghana (SE Ghana) is an organisation that seeks to bring together all the players in the social enterprise sector in Ghana to build a stronger social enterprise ecosystem and increase its impact.

Its goal is to strengthen Ghana’s social enterprise ecosystem to drive innovation, and scale-up enterprise-based solutions to Ghana’s pressing social problems.