Social Enterprise Ghana in collaboration with British Council has launched the SE Ghana Social Thursday Celebration to explore opportunities and access to funding by Women’s Social Entrepreneurs to aid in business growth and acceleration.
The virtual event held on Thursday, March 18, 2021, had key experts speaking on debt and equity financing, and financial and legal compliance to provide in-depth information on how to access financing.
“SMEs are the drivers of change; it is, therefore, essential to invest in SMEs that are ready to scale up especially women,” said Abraham Mensah-Belley, senior investor officer at GroFin Ghana.
Although over 50% of Social Enterprises are women-led and contribute significantly to Ghana’s economic growth, access to funding has been a challenge, and one of the factors hindering these businesses to thrive. For this reason, the Social Thursday celebration is designed to look at various finance options for women entrepreneurs such as Debt, Equity, or Grants, and available financing and support to structure their businesses to be able to pass the strict requirements of funders.
The Social Thursday celebration dived into issues of debt products available in Ghana and how to access them; equity products available in Ghana and how to access them; and what social enterprises need to do to comply with all laws and access all government benefits.
Capacity building programs such as Access to Finance Accelerator have introduced thirty- six (36) women-led social enterprises to an 8-weeks of business coaching.
Social Enterprise Ghana and the British Council continue to support exchanges, forums, capacity building, and policy dialogues that seek to support social entrepreneurs especially led and managed by women.
Theme:” Enabling women founders to access appropriate financing – Deep dives with experts”