The National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme has launched the NEIP Hubs Acceleration Grant Programme under the Ghana Economic Transformation Project to support entrepreneurship and innovation hubs with $200,000.

According to the Chief Executive of the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme, Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, the grant programme is geared towards supporting the development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem by building the capacities of entrepreneurship hubs and strengthening their growth model to ensure economic transformation and growth of startups in the country.

The NEIP Hubs Acceleration Grant Programme is to provide entrepreneurship hubs with financial and technical support to enhance their services to benefit startups in the country.

Selected hubs will receive grants up to $200,000 to support their operations, upgrade their offices and equipment and run acceleration programmes.

Speaking at the launch of the programme, the Chief Executive of the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme, said the hubs will be required to support and nurture the ideas of startups in the country.

“We are going to provide support to about 50 innovation and entrepreneurship hubs in the country, what they’ll have to do is to nurture the ideas of startups, support and run incubator and accelerator programmes  to ensure that we are seeding ventures in the communities”, he said.

Chairman of the Ghana Hubs Network, Josiah Ayison, added that the support was timely and would help fast-track the development of startups in the country.

The NEIP Hubs Acceleration Grant Programme will focus on hubs operating in areas such as agriculture, technology and innovation, light manufacturing and processing, waste and green businesses and technical and vocational oriented hubs.

The hubs would be selected based on the submission of a sound business plan, standardization and certification requirements.

Chosen entrepreneurship hubs would be monitored and evaluated to access their progress after disbursement of the amount.