A delegation of the European Union and SNV Ghana have met with selected small and medium scale businesses at Recycle Up Ghana, a key implementing hub for the SNV GrEEn project.

The interaction with the start-up businesses in the Ashanti Region is to better appreciate how their operations have been positively impacted by the SNV GrEEn Incubation programme.

The Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana, otherwise known as GrEEn, is a four year joint project of the European Union, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ghana, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and SNV.

The project, established in the Ashanti and Western regions of Ghana, seeks to address the root causes of irregular migration by supporting sustainable and climate resilient local economies and green jobs.

European Ambassador to Ghana, Irchad Razaaly, said the European Union is delighted at the creative inventions by the SMEs.

“I was amazed by the energy and the brilliant ideas that the SMEs have in wavering the consequences of wastes be it plastic or organic.

“Brilliant ideas to turn organics into animal firms, vegetables into briquettes, etc. I’m just amazed by the inventivity of these youngsters. This is why the European Union is supporting them.

“We will be delighted to see the ideas bearing fruits and coming to scale up. So, we want them to be supported again in order to be scaled up to have an even bigger impact and go beyond the already 75,000 youth that’s benefiting from the program,” he said.

Country Director for SNV Ghana, Anjo Van Toorn, admonished the creation of more GrEEn businesses in Ghana to provide jobs to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.  

“This is really a very good enthusiastic group of entrepreneurs who are creating green businesses. And with creating GrEEn businesses, we can scale further.

“We create many new jobs for young Ghanaian people including women. This is really important. Let’s go GrEEn,” he said.  

Business Incubation Manager at Recycle Up, Angela Anane-Frimpong, revealed how enthusiastic the SMEs are, for the intense business development training sessions they were taken through.

“We’re grateful for their time. I’m particularly happy about the fact that they embraced and appreciated the businesses these SMEs are coming up with. 

“Also, I’m glad these SMEs are enthused about the teachings and learnings that we’ve taken them through over the six months period,” she said.

CEO of one of the start-up businesses, Fred Oduro of Freddy Bidipa Company limited indicated that “the incubation programme has caused his business to blossom”. 

His business seeks to reduce methane produced by both organic and inorganic waste into the atmosphere to facilitate prevention of drastic climate change.