The cohort comprises startups covering areas directly and indirectly impacting children, young people, and their families, including in education, health, sanitation, climate action and adolescent wellbeing.

Established in 2019, the UNICEF StartUp Lab engages young Ghana­ian startups to develop and promote innovative, open-source, market-driven products and digital solutions to help address complex problems affecting the wellbeing of children and young people, especially the most vulnerable.

The selected innovators would take part in a specific accelerator pro­gramme which aims to improve their businesses and contribute to advanc­ing the SDGs for children and young people.

“UNICEF is committed to support­ing young people across Ghana who are generating entrepreneurial and innovative business ideas to support their communities.

“The UNICEF StartUp Lab accel­erator programme provides them with valuable knowledge and capacity to improve their readiness and ability to succeed in the marketplace”, Fiachra McAsey, UNICEF Representative ad interim, said in a statement issued by KOICA on Tuesday.

It said this opportunity for young social impact innovators had at­tracted the support of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and recognising the strong drive among Ghanaian youth to start their own businesses, KOICA was collaborating with UNICEF under the KOICA-UNICEF Accelerating Entre­preneurship and Innovation in Ghana Project to further expand the success­ful UNICEF StartUp Lab accelerator programme.

“There are just seven more years to reach the SDGs and that makes it critical to support programmes that will help speed up progress to reach the goals. Through this collaboration, we hope that we can expedite entre­preneurship and innovation in Ghana, especially those that contribute to support the efforts of young entrepre­neurs whose determination will even­tually contribute to the growth of the Ghanaian economy.” said the Senior Deputy Country Director for KOICA Ghana, Mr Seungmin Oh.

The statement said UNICEF was also collaborating with MEST Africa to implement the programme under which participants would be able to access tailored groups, individual men­toring, and networking opportunities.

It said they would also be support­ed by a group of regional innovation hubs and engage closely with technical experts from UNICEF, KOICA and MEST Africa.

“The startups will be able to access seed funding to enhance the digi­tal components of their businesses through UNICEF and KOICA, and gain international and national invest­ment opportunities, including through the UNICEF Innovation Fund and the Digital Public Goods Alliance”, it said.