The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprise Agency, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, has cautioned that growth in Ghana’s Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) sector will continue to lag unless women, who dominate the sector, embrace digital transformation.
Speaking at the opening of this year’s Ghana Digital and Innovation Week in the Ashanti Region, she stressed the need for female-led businesses to harness digital innovations to drive market expansion in an era of rapid digital advancement.
Kosi Yankey-Ayeh pointed out that many women-led businesses remain micro in nature and are not leveraging the full potential of digital tools to grow. She singled out as important that these enterprises to evolve beyond their current size, as doing so would enable them to create more jobs and access greater resources.
She further stressed the government’s commitment to supporting women in business, noting that 60 percent of the Ghana Enterprise Agency’s business support facilities have been allocated to women.
The event, hosted by She Hub with support from Hapa Space Ghana and funding from GIZ, focused on empowering women in the informal MSME space to adopt digital technologies to scale their businesses. According to the World Bank and the 2019 MasterCard Africa Business Index, women make up 44 percent of Ghana’s MSMEs, ranking the country second in Africa for the number of female entrepreneurs.
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She Hub Executive Director Erica Adu Twumwaa Kyere emphasized the transformative power of digital innovation for women in business, noting that digital tools such as smartphones and internet access can significantly enhance market reach and financial opportunities for entrepreneurs. This, she said, would help women-led businesses grow beyond their current limitations.
The weeklong Ghana Digital and Innovation Week, a partnership between Ghana, Germany, and Israel, also featured digital literacy workshops and access to funding sources for women entrepreneurs.
Attendees had the opportunity to exhibit their products and introduce their services to a wider audience, fostering networking and business growth in the process.
