More than 6000 Small, Micro and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the fintech, agribusiness and agritech industries across the country have benefited from a GH¢1.1 billion investment to grow their ventures and create decent jobs for the teeming youth.
The five-year intervention is being initiated by Absa Bank Ghana in partnership with Mastercard Foundation.
Dubbed: "Absa Young Africa Works (AYAW) project", the project sought to create about 50,000 decent jobs for young men and women by empowering micro, small and medium-sized enterprises through the provision of entrepreneurial skills training and collateral-free business loans at a minimal interest rate.
So far, 25,000 jobs have been created through the project.
Field visit
This came to light when the Project Manager of AYAW, Innocent Kodzo Awumey, led a team from Absa Bank and Mastercard Foundation on a field visit to assess the impact of the project in the Northern Region.
The team visited Aimal Sheni Enterprise, which is into the sale of electronic gadgets and Idan Agro Enterprise which deals in Agro inputs.
Mr Awumey said: "The project is youth and women-led, so the idea is to support the beneficiaries to grow their businesses so that they can also employ people and create decent jobs for themselves," he said.
While expressing satisfaction with the impact of the project on the businesses, he encouraged the youth and women who were into small-scale businesses to take advantage of the project to grow their businesses.
Beneficiaries
The Head of Agribusiness at Absa Bank, Ghana, William Brandford Nettey, said a lot of agribusinesses in various value chains across the nation had so far benefitted from the project to expand their businesses.
The Chief Executive Officer of Aimal Sheni Enterprise, Abdul-Rashid Iddrisu, who is a beneficiary of the intervention, thanked the Absa Bank and Mastercard Foundation for supporting him in expanding his business.
He indicated that since the beginning of the project in October 2022, the company has seen significant growth in sales revenue and is currently in the final stages of obtaining a franchise for sale, distribution and servicing of a global brand of air conditioners in the northern sector.
Also, the Managing Director of Idan Agro Company, Isaac Papanko, said his outfit received support through the project to upscale his business which supports about 1,250 smallholder farmers with maize and soya seeds, inputs, fertilisers and mechanisation support.
He said the company had been able to employ about 20 permanent employees, and engages averagely 190 temporary farmers through that support.
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