By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, March 15, GNA - The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) has lined up a number of interventions to support women entrepreneurs.
Ms Kosi Yankey, the Executive Director of NBSSI, said those interventions covered access to finance, access to technical support, access to business development services or capacity development support, or any need they might have for their businesses.
In all businesses of which about 60 per cent are women would be supported.
She said some people might want to start a business but had no idea as to where to go, or some might have started the business and did not have access to finance and that was where the NBSSI came in.
Ms Yankey said this during a panel discussion at a Policy Forum in Accra.
The Policy Forum was organised by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Ghana, in partnership with the British Council.
The Forum on the theme: “Women’s Empowerment through Social Enterprise: The Role of Government, Civil Society and the Private Sector” registered stakeholders from academia, policy makers, women social entrepreneurs, development partners and the private sector.
Its objective was to create a platform to discuss the current constraints faced by women social entrepreneurs across Ghana specifically focusing on accessing finance, training and accessing markets.
Ms Yankey said what its Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Policy sought to achieve was to have a plan to support the MSMEs.
"The yet- to-be unveiled policy is actually a plan and a direction of bringing sanity into the sector".
He said a lot of businesses did not have their books right and their governance structures were not in place and those issues needed to addressed to facilitate their sourcing of funds.
Mrs Angela Asante, Presidential Advisor on Gender and Development, said women had always been the drivers of social change.
She stated that in advanced countries all political, social and economic movement had been remits by women and urged women in Ghana to speak with a collective voice to set targets.
Mrs Asante said in countries where women were supported to produce and be productive, the social and economic outcomes were there to be seen.
She said a key point was how to increase women political participation, which was extremely important; adding; “If you are not part of the decision-making table it would be a challenge to ensure policies are actually implemented”.
The Ghana Women in Social Enterprise Month is an initiative of GEN Ghana which aims to promote women in social enterprise to generate social good through sustainable business opportunities while fostering economic inclusion for women.
GEN Ghana aims to host a series of events in March 2019 to put a spotlight on Women in Social Enterprise, while commemorating the International Women’s Month of Celebrations.
GNA
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