Director of Operations at Recycle Up! Ghana, Gertrude Mawuena Goh, has called for increased government and corporate funding to expand opportunities for young entrepreneurs in the country’s circular economy, as the organisation continues efforts to build businesses from the country’s waste challenges.

According to her, inadequate funding remains a major hindrance to creating opportunities for the youth in the green economy.

She made the call at the RUG Incubation Programme Cohort 6 Demo Day held at the KIC Centre of Excellence in Ejisu, under the theme, “Empowering Innovation for Sustainable Business Growth.”

“We want the government to provide us with the network and also the funding support to enable us to us build more capacities of the youths in the secular economy space, so far, we had just a few engagements with the government like the NEIP Adwumawura program which we were privileged to train some startups in the Ashanti region.

Through that we were able to raise some funding to support the work we do, so more of such initiatives that can directly support us will be beneficial,”she asserted.

The RUG Incubation Programme, which has been running since 2019, targets young people between 18 and 35 years, particularly early-stage social entrepreneurs developing solutions in waste management, the circular economy and green business.

Participants receive training in financial management, fundraising, investor pitching, product and idea validation, business development, legal issues and market development.

Previous cohorts have also benefited from prototype funding and opportunities to pitch their businesses to investors.

Ms Goh said RUG’s work seeks not only to improve livelihoods but also to address the growing waste challenge, particularly waste that chokes drains and contributes to environmental degradation.

She, however, said inadequate funding remains a major challenge to expanding the organisation’s impact and called for stronger government and corporate support.

Ms Goh said RUG has so far impacted more than 35,000 people through its various interventions, stressing that the organisation’s work goes beyond incubation to include environmental awareness and behaviour-change programmes.

She said RUG also intends to expand its incubation programme to more young people across the country while strengthening its nationwide waste education campaign.

“Through the nationwide waste education campaign, we visit basic schools and sometimes senior high schools and we found environmental school clubs basically teaching them about waste management which focus on plastic waste, how they can reduce waste and also empower the schools to segregate plastic waste so that it feeds into the recycling value chain and we have launched a waste management hand book that we use in these environmental awareness education campaigns,” she added.

The Cohort 6 Demo Day featured seven start-ups and 13 entrepreneurs who pitched their businesses and products to investors and industry stakeholders.

The start-ups are focused on converting waste and agricultural by-products into products ranging from furniture and cosmetics to animal feed, reusable sanitary products, fabrics, packaging and fruit-based beverages.

Ecofurn, which repurposes rice husks, groundnut husks and plastic waste into durable, insect-resistant, water-resistant and eco-friendly school desks, emerged as the overall winner and received GH¢7,000.

Ellora Cosmetics, which produces rice shampoo bars, conditioners and face and body scrubs from waste rice, placed second with GH¢5,000, while Jostimo, a producer of pelletised animal feed from agricultural waste and by-products, placed third and received GH¢3,000.

For Ellora Cosmetics co-founder Theodora Dankwah and her partner, Louisa Yeboah, the programme provided an important opportunity to move their start-up beyond simply producing products to understanding their customers and building a sustainable business.

Ms Dankwah said her personal struggle with acne and unsuccessful attempts with different skincare products inspired the development of Ellora Cosmetics.

She said the company uses rice in its products, drawing inspiration from the popularity of rice-based skincare products, particularly in Korea.

“As a startup, we’ve always been searching for opportunities and how to bring our business into the spotlight so we saw the RUG Incubation Program opportunity on LinkedIn and we took the chance to apply.

It has been an eye-opening journey for us because at first we were going to stores to give them our products but coming to RUG Incubation Program, we knew that it does not just start from you doing the product but it starts from you knowing your customers and what they’re going through to come up with your products, "she said.

Ms Dankwah identified regulatory requirements, particularly certification by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), as one of the major challenges confronting the start-up.

She appealed to government and relevant stakeholders to introduce a simplified support package for start-ups in the food and cosmetics sectors to make regulatory certification more accessible.

“We’re calling on the government to bring in a small package for we the startups because even now if you want to open a bank account, some of the banks require FDA certificate before especially if you are in the food and cosmetics industry before they can open an account for you.

And looking at the processes, that FDA has to go through and the business registration has to go through, it makes it very difficult for we that startups to acquire that certificate. We call on the government to give us a package that will fasten the process for us, "she appealed.

The other participating start-ups were NafiPad, which produces reusable period pads from natural, breathable and biodegradable fabrics; FIBRELUX, which produces sustainable fabrics from plantain stems; Yarps Food, which processes cassava into shelf-stable flour and converts cassava peels and other waste into biodegradable packaging; and Vitazobo, which processes fruits into tea bags to extend their shelf life and reduce spoilage.

The seven start-ups and their entrepreneurs are part of RUG’s broader effort to promote youth-led innovation, waste reduction and sustainable enterprise development in Ghana’s circular economy.

The Demo Day winners were Ecofurn, which placed first and took home GH¢7,000, Ellora Cosmetics, which placed second with GH¢5,000, and Jostimo, which placed third, winning GH¢3,000.