MTN Ghana has reaffirmed its commitment to promoting and supporting women in the entrepreneurial sector for country development.
Speaking at the the national women’s summit and expo on Friday in Accra, Mrs Angela Mensah-Poku, Chief Enterprise Business Officer at MTN Ghana, highlighted the company’s dedication to supporting women entrepreneurs, particularly those in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector.
She said that economic parity cannot be achieved without empowering women, particularly in Ghana’s informal sector, where a significant number of businesses are female-led.
To bridge this gap, she announced that MTN Ghana will soon launch a new digital product designed specifically for women entrepreneurs.
“We’ll be launching a new product in the next few weeks that seeks to support women on their digital journey, give them access to markets, give them access to mentorship and capability training, as well as exciting products and services from MTN business,” she said.
“We thought, what better place to come and outdoor this than the summit today, and with International Women’s Day being tomorrow, we said that now is the time. We believe that accelerate for action is one of the calls to duty, and we’re excited to be part of this summit”, Mrs Poku added.
She noted that limited access to funds was a major challenge for women in businesses, hence she called for support from government, private companies and institutions to support women with great entrepreneurial skills.
She said many women-led SMEs struggle to secure funding due to the informal nature of their businesses and lack of required financial documentation.
She reiterated that MTN Ghana was working closely with banks, SME Ghana, and Nova to provide training in areas such as bookkeeping, marketing, and tax compliance.
Additionally, the company is exploring innovative financial solutions that leverage mobile money transactions as an alternative credit assessment tool.
Mrs Mensah-Poku said MTN Ghana’s strategy also involved collaborating with banks, insurance companies, and the MTN Foundation to offer comprehensive support to women-led SMEs.
“Once you empower a woman, you empower a community. And so therefore, how can we do that better as MTN Ghana and as MTN business? That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re willing to support,” she added.
She said the company believed that by equipping women with the right resources, the ripple effect will extend to entire communities, fostering national economic growth.
