The Youth Sector Engagement Group (Y-SEG) has launched the Business Solutions for Young Entrepreneur’s Business Recovery and Resilience Support for young entrepreneurs affected by the Novel Coronavirus. 

The 3-month programme is expected to be implemented in partnership with AABN Innovation and Technology Institute (AITI), Ghana Chamber of Young Entrepreneurs (GCYE) and Young Professionals in Agricultural Development (YPARD) and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). 

The focus of the programme is to provide business development support, facilitate engagements with 100 young entrepreneurs towards mitigating the challenges posed by COVID-19 and to promote recovery and resilience of youth-led businesses beyond the pandemic.

It will mobilize, train and mentor 100 selected young entrepreneurs on business recovery and continuity strategies for managing business challenges amid the coronavirus. 

Given that over 80 per cent of the 600,000 registered enterprises are in Ghana SMEs, several assessments made by leaders of business associations have classified the impact of COVID-19 on their enterprises as very severe.

Prominent among them are increasing cases of layoffs due to the loss of contracts, among others with young people hardest hit. 

To address the impact on the economy, the government launched the COVID-19 relief package of about ¢1 billion to support businesses. However, private sector associations lamented to government that the recovery interventions were inadequate to serve over 600,000 registered enterprises in Ghana,

Since over 80 percent of businesses are SMEs, youth-led businesses may be found in this category with a majority in the informal sector. 

With the just launched Business Solutions for Young Entrepreneur’s Business Recovery and Resilience Support, business innovators can meet experts in business, industry and academia, build valuable collaborations with business development experts, fellow innovators and have access to business development training, tools and insights thus gain fresh ideas and practices to recover their businesses and build resilience taking it to the next level post COVID-19.