Head of Programme Support to the Ghana Private and Financial Sector, supported by the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), and financed by the Ministry for Economic Cooperation Development, and the European Union (EU), Dr Christian Jahn, has explained the purpose of the GIZ’s Regional Network Conference for Enterprise Development & Employment Promotion (RNCEDEP).

He spoke to Class News’ Prince Benjamin (PB) on the sidelines of the two-day 2024 RNCEDEP, which took place on November 12 and 13, at the University of Professional Studies-Accra (UPSA).  

He recognised Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) were “the backbone of the economy” contributing 70 per cent of Ghana’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Ghana is “a very fertile ground” for MSMEs seeing as, “out of a huge 2.1 million enterprises in the country, 1.7 million are actually MSMEs,” he added. “It’s a crucial factor for employment creation and economic development.”

“Yet,” he bemoaned, “they face a lot of hurdles and challenges when they want to build a business or scale”.

Access to information and financing, he underlined, were two of the major hurdles for MSMEs.

Through the RNCEDEP, he said, “first, we want to give them access to information, and let them know where they can get what kind of information – meaning service provision – from business development service providers, but also from government agencies.

“On the other hand, another big challenge for all enterprises is always getting access to finance. That’s why we have here financial service institutions that can provide access to finance.”

He emphasised: “So the whole idea for this networking is for enterprise-development and employment promotion for MSMEs, bringing together all relevant stakeholders in one place to have a kind of one-stop-shop for the MSMEs so that they have better access to information, finance and services.”

Parallel programmes

Dr Jahn observed: “Here in Ghana we have a lot of different government programmes that support enterprises; a lot of donor funding programmes, and very often these programmes run parallel – they don’t know from each other what kind of services are offered. And that is why this conference – which is just the beginning of building a network – is really bringing together all stakeholders so all of us have a better overview of what kind of programmes exist for the enterprises and at the same time these enterprises have better access to the relevant programmes.”

Networking

“There’s a lot to learn from peers, first and foremost, knowing what other entrepreneurs go through, realising they are not alone with the challenges and at the same time airing out their problems,” he said, noting the benefit of MSMEs networking among themselves.

The “kind of networking” the two-day RNCEDEP programme offered, Dr Jahn underlined was “not too expensive” as it did not need “that many resources”.

He added: “It’s more of bringing them [stakeholders] together. That’s why it’s actually a low-cost intervention.”

Structure

He noted it was “crucial to agree on building a governance structure for this network” as key stakeholders are identified on both sides of government and enterprise.  

He said success for the RNCEDEP will be “when we have a common understanding on the way forward and identify some additional resources for the future.

“The main outcome and objective is if we can agree on the way forward and to decide on who runs the secretariat, for example, and they have some champions from the private sector and government side who come out and say yes they want to go ahead with that.”