France as part of its initiative to help create jobs for the youth in Africa, has partnered Africa start-ups and the Micro, Small and Medium Size Enterprises (MSMEs).
Mr Djalal Khimdjee, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of PROPARCO- a French Development Agency (AFD) Group who made this known during a media interaction said, about 450 million African Youth would enter the labour market with both opportunities and challenges and if not checked would affect the continent and the world.
He said Africa is the continent with the largest proportion of entrepreneurs with 20 per cent of businesses offering new products or services.
"Start-ups, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises play a crucial role in job creation, economic growth and innovation and in developing and emerging countries, SMEs account for 90 per cent of formal businesses, create 60 per cent jobs and contribute to around 40 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)," he said.
Despite the roles SMEs play, there was lack of adequate and suitable financing that hindered entrepreneurs' ambition as well as curbed growth, Mr Khimdjee said.
He said as a result, the AFD Group launched the "Choose Africa" project with 2.5 billion Euros to support them with loans tailored to their specific needs that would boost 10,000 African businesses by 2020.
The services that Choose Africa would render were financing and investment, strategic and technical support, supporting local entrepreneurial ecosystems, and start-ups, private equity investment for SMEs among others to fulfil the SGDs.
Madam Anne Sophie Ave, the French Ambassador said the Choose Africa Project was launched in 2018 to support companies including Ghanaian ones to grow and pass on to the next generations.
The French Government was impressed with the trustworthy, competitive, creative and talented nature of Ghanaian enterprises and was happy to support.
She said France had the political will to increase its investment in Africa by supporting their businesses with loans channeled through its partners based in the continent.
The initiative would not only support beneficiaries with money but also bring peers together for training and experience sharing.