The German Development Cooperation has supported 410 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions with business start-up tools, equipment and kits at a ceremony in Sunyani.

The items worth more than GHC1 million was from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation.

The equipment comprised dehydrators, hair dryers, ovens with pressure tubes and regulators, digital cameras, machines for oil filling, tea making, tom brown making, heat transfer, grating, soap making and cutting, motor spraying and industrial sewing machines.

The contribution was to empower the young entrepreneurs and address the need for essential business equipment to scale up or start their businesses as part of series of activities aimed at unlocking the entrepreneurial potential of businesses of the beneficiaries and facilitating their access to diverse opportunities for growth.

The beneficiaries were successful in their participation of two initiatives comprised a business idea competition and the ‘Adwumaye’ short-term skills training.

Speaking at the handing-over ceremony, Dr. Christian Jahn, the Head of the Support to the Private and Financial Sector (PFS) Programme, GIZ Ghana, explained the Business Competition was aimed at providing an opportunity for Ghanaian youth to unearth their entrepreneurial abilities and develop positive mindset to inspire them to think about businesses.

He added, the ‘Adwumaye’ skills training was a capacity-building project in the three regions and aimed at offering short-term skills training to young people and providing business start-up tools and equipment to them after completing the training.

“The training covered several trade areas including catering, fashion design, cosmetology, satellite installation and bakery”, Dr. Jahn indicated.

He explained the private sector had the potential to lead a country out of its economic challenges, because it could create jobs, saying in Ghana MSMEs contributed to about 80 per cent of all employment.

Dr. Jahn stated that necessitated for GIZ to invest in building the capacity of young entrepreneurs so that they could start their businesses and expand further to create jobs to employ more people.

He said: “Since the inception of the Perspektive Heimat programme in 2017, also known as the Returning to New Opportunities programme, we have supported approximately 10,000 business startups and about 5,400 of this number (including 50 per cent women) have moved on to become self-employed and are now generating income from the support received”.

Dr Jahn therefore told the young entrepreneurs, investing in themselves was the best investment they could ever make, saying it was not going to improve their lives alone but that of others.

He advised them to be persistent and resilient in their business journey and through that they would make it to the top.