By Christabel DANSO ABEAM
At the recent graduation ceremony of the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) in Accra, Virginia Evelyn Palmer, United State of America’s (U.S.A) Ambassador to Ghana, called on women entrepreneurs to capitalise on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to expand their businesses internationally.
AGOA is a U.S.A trade programme launched in 2000 that aims to stimulate economic growth through a duty-free access to over 1,800 products from eligible African countries.
In an interview, the ambassador highlighted the significant benefits of AGOA, which offers duty-free access to the U.S market for a wide range of African products.
Stressing on the enormous potential for entrepreneurs, especially women, to break into the global market and increase their revenue streams, she said: “AGOA gives a unique opportunity for Ghanaian entrepreneurs to scale up their businesses and access one of the world’s largest consumer markets, which leads to economic growth”.
Ambassador Palmer further underscored the U.S.A’s commitment to foster economic empowerment and support Ghana’s entrepreneural ecosystem and established that women-owned businesses are important to economic growth and poverty alleviation.
On some challenges entrepreneurs face in setting and maintaining businesses, she identified the access to credit as one major issue and pledged to continue putting up solutions in place to eradicate that problem.
She also encouraged women to take advantage of initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to help boost their penetration into the international market.
The Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) is a U.S.A Government initiative launched in Ghana in 2019 and aims to provide women with knowledge, network and access they need to start successful businesses.
The 6th graduation marked the climax of 13 weeks intense training programme designed to equip women entrepreneurs with skills in business development, financial management and export readiness.
This year’s cohort of graduates comprises of 75 women from various sectors from ten regions of Ghana.
According to Dr. Shola Safo-Duah, Country Lead – AWE-Ghana, this year’s selection of women was concentrated on women entrepreneurs who have already built something up but need training to expand their businesses.
“Previously, the selection was not limited; we gave opportunities to start-ups and even those who only had ideas and needed the proper advice and training to develop them. But with this year’s selection, we only selected women entrepreneurs who are already operating in the space of 2-3 years.”
She also noted that due to the virtual nature of the training, an applicant should be an Internet literate and have access to a smart phone.
Courses taken during the training are: networking, confidence building, strategic planning for entrepreneurs, social media marketing, basic accounting, client relations management, business financing, among other relevant courses.
Dr. Safo-Duah also added that a mentorship programme is given to graduands for three months after completion, with the aim to make sure the they are able to apply all skills learnt as well as an opportunity through the ‘Business Plan Competition’ to obtain a grant of US$20,000 from the World Bank after the end of the programme.
She advised that for a successful business, every entrepreneur should take his or her potential employee through an interview regardless of the relationship in other to be able to select the best.
