In line with its mandate of propelling Ghana’s economic growth and development, the Development Bank Ghana (DBG) with the aim of garnering all thoughts and views has introduced a podcast platform, DBG Connect, to accelerate Ghana’s inclusive and sustainable economic transformation.

DBG Connect is a digital platform to promote thought-provoking discussions with industry leaders, experts and key stakeholders to explore and discuss key themes of socio-economic interest.

The DBG Connect platform, an initiative of DBG, was created out of the necessity to continue the conversations that will generate the needed ideas to augment ongoing efforts directed toward the financial transformation of businesses in Ghana.

Entrusted with the mandate of fostering strong partnerships to finance economic growth, creating jobs and building capacity for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), DBG has focused on taking advantage of all opportunities that will lead to the fulfillment of this mandate.

As a result, DBG Connect is one such vehicle that is positioned to be a place where ideas converge, where knowledge is shared and where solutions will be discussed and fashioned.

The programme therefore brings together stakeholders and leaders in the business industry.

The structure of DBG Connect allows for discussions to be moderated by a host who engages panelists in in-depth conversations.

This feature will run through all the episodes in the series. The discussions will be focused on key topics and themes including challenges and opportunities in agriculture, leveraging technology to support industry, policy advocacy and agricultural financing, building a competitive private sector and value-chain financing and support.

The discussions, which will be produced in video will be available on the Bank’s YouTube channel. It will also be released as a podcast on various online streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Touching on the relevance of the initiative, Kwamina Duker, Chief Executive of DBG mentioned that the issues and challenges faced by businesses especially SMEs such as lack of access to capital, regulatory bottlenecks, little or no capacity building, and a host of others all contribute to the multifaceted nature of these challenges, and unfortunately, there is no one person with the answer to all the problems.

He therefore called for collaboration from all captains of industry and leaders of institutions to have such conversations which will keep ideas flowing and lead to their successful implementation.

“There is a complex problem out there and there is no one messiah, but the fact that we are beginning to have these discussions is so important because all these issues can be resolved by people collaborating. I urge all who are interested in this country’s economic transformation to watch each episode and offer suggestions on the issues and solutions. Links will be provided on our social media channels in order to make it easy to access DBG Connect and also to provide feedback,” he said.

DBG Connect’s first episode is expected to be released today with the focus on tackling the challenges and opportunities in the agricultural sector.

There are two more episodes expected before 2023 comes to an end and each of these will cover bottlenecks and possible solutions in the country’s pursuit of economic transformation.

Development Bank Ghana is a wholesale financial institution established by the Government of Ghana.

DBG acts as a provider of long-term capital to the market with a mission to foster strong partnerships to finance economic growth, create jobs, and build capacity for SMEs.

The organisation is committed, aligned and strengthened to achieve UN Sustainable Goals (SDGs) ambitions and targets while implementing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy aimed at creating shared value and impact with purpose.