Social Enterprise Ghana calls on gov’t to pass social enterprise policy

A contingent of 21 social enterprises and organisations from Ghana participated in the Social Enterprise World Forum at Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

The Social Enterprise World Forum is an annual conference by global players in the social enterprise ecosystem and this happened to be the first to be organised on Africa continent.

Social Enterprise Ghana is the network of social enterprises and entrepreneurs in Ghana.

Edwin Zu-Cudjoe, Executive Director of Social Enterprise Ghana used the platform to call on government to be the first country in Africa to pass the Social Enterprise Policy.

He said doing so means Ghana will take advantage of the $502 billion social impact investing market.

Social Enterprises are organisations that use business strategies to solve social challenges for impact, good environment and profit and this has gained momentum globally.

According to the British Council, Ghana currently has about 26,000 social enterprises and entrepreneurs.

A member of the network who was also a speaker at the event, Chineyenwa Okoro Onu, co-founder and Managing Director of Waste or Create Hub called for skills development for social entrepreneurs.

She believes this will enable them to scale up and investors to understand the need to provide patient capital so social entrepreneurs can impact more people.

On his part, Kwami Williams, CEO of MoringaConnect called on agribusinesses to add value to the numerous underutilised indigenous crops.

He said these are abundant on the continent and can be used to improve the lives of farmers, create jobs and make innovative products for consumers.

British Council’s Project Manager, Christiana Bandor says British Council has become a major enabler for social entrepreneurship and has urged the youth to take advantage of this opportunity to create social businesses to reduce youth unemployment.