Africa Skills Hub has launched the first-ever Social Enterprise (SE) Marketplace in Tamale, Northern Region of Ghana on August 31.

The initiative was aimed at providing a well-rounded business centre fully equipped to provide all the essential services that food and beverage entrepreneurs need to operate successful businesses in the agribusiness value chain and improve their economic well-being.

The Social Enterprise (SE) Marketplace is a dynamic centre for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that provides an array of services and access to the facilities food entrepreneurs need to process agricultural raw materials, produce their food innovations under standardised Food and Drugs Authority guidelines, package products, market them; improve their skills, and receive further support to scale-up their businesses.

Launching the initiative, Daniel Amoako Antwi, Executive Director of Africa Skills Hub, said “the SE Marketplace is an initiative in creating real change as this will generate many agribusiness entrepreneurs with various innovative food products for both the local and international markets.’’

“Moving forward the roadmap is to have the SE Marketplace across all the regions in the country since this will help our MSMEs in the Agribusiness value chain to have sustainable enterprises,” he added.

The Agribusiness and Food and Beverage sectors have always been women-centred as it’s a means to improve their economic wellbeing and provide for their families.

However, some obstacles prevent the women, many of whom are within the MSMEs level from scaling up their businesses and enjoying their economic rights to the fullest.

These include access to capital for business, ineffective food processing technologies, difficulty in access to market, ineffective food processing technologies, and facilities for large-scale production under standardised conditions.

The Women’s Entrepreneurship and Livelihoods Initiative by Africa Skills Hub together with partners seeks to drive socio-economic empowerment of entrepreneurs (largely women and youth) and effectively create and grow entrepreneurs along the value chains of the value and market demanded commodities of the north.