The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Societe Generale Ghana PLC (SG Ghana) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to encourage and support innovators, especially small businesses led by youth, women, and persons with disabilities (PWDs) to scale up innovations towards sustainable development.

The partnership aims to leverage the expertise and resources of both institutions to provide a tailored programme including capacity building, mentorship, business to business matching, and pitching master classes to enable easy access to investors and markets for products and services.

“Partnership plays a critical role in accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and UNDP is committed to working with the Private Sector and all actors to unlock SDG aligned investments for greater impact.”

“This partnership is very important as Société Générale joins forces with UNDP to support national actions to expand employment opportunities for youth, women, and People with Disabilities for shared prosperity”, noted Angela Lusigi, UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana.

As part of the partnership, the UNDP Accelerator Lab, SG Innov8 Hub and SG Home of Business will be leading efforts to co-create opportunities for innovators to thrive and scale-up to penetrate markets beyond the shores of Ghana.

“This partnership with the UNDP Accelerator Lab which has the unique expertise in working with grassroots innovators will not only broaden the Bank’s reach but also its ability to support new initiatives, SMEs, young people, persons with disabilities and innovative startups”, said the Managing Director of SG Ghana PLC, Hakim Ouzzani.

The partnership will leverage UNDP’s expertise in working with grassroots innovators, and SG Ghana’s expertise in supporting businesses and entrepreneurs.

Under the agreement, UNDP through its Accelerator Lab, and SG Ghana through its Innov8 Hub and the SG Home of Business, will run the Inclusive Entrepreneurship partnership, taking a pipeline of innovators through capacity building, free use of SG Ghana’s Home of Business and Innov8 Hub services.

Participating entrepreneurs will include a selection of the 22 grassroot innovators who received funding and technical support through the UNDP Accelerator Lab COVID-19 Innovation Challenge and other innovators and entrepreneurs selected by UNDP.

It is expected that at least 50% of innovators supported will gain increased traction to scale up their innovations.