Yofi Grant (left) and Silke Hollander
GHANA HAS officially activated a platform to provide market intelligence on investment opportunities in the country.
The ‘SDG Investment Platform’ forms part of UNDP’s enterprising initiative to accelerate Ghana’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-aligned investments.
The platform offers insight, data, and impact measurement tools to both local and foreign investors, with the purpose of fast-tracking attainment of SDGs.
The SDG investor map, a key feature of the platform, provides market intelligence for private sector investors, by translating country-level SDG gaps and priorities into investment opportunities.
The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) SDG Impact, and Global Investor for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance, together launched the platform in Accra.
It was organised in concurrence with the global launch at the margin of the United Nations
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Forum on Financing for Development and the SDG Investment Fair.
Yofi Grant, CEO of GIPC, opined that the investment platform aligns with the centre’s objective to identify and promote investment opportunities in the country.
“UNDP’s market intelligence tool is closely aligned with the mandate of GIPC.
“The SDG Investor Map is a concrete and comprehensive set of information that helps us to identify investment opportunities that we can promote in support of the government’s vision.
“The implementation of the SDG Investor Map follows exactly the approach we take at GIPC,” Mr. Grant remarked.
He said the platform would support the efforts of the GIPC in facilitating an attractive investment framework and advocating for investors’ concerns in policymaking.
Mr. Grant assured that the GIPC would continue working with UNDP to facilitate sector focused investments, and that, the centre counts on the power of the SDG Investor Platform to make Ghanaian opportunities available to international audiences.
This valuable investor toolkit also gives intelligence on local market conditions, in addition to a gross evaluation of the entrepreneurial environment.
With Ghana’s SDG financing gap estimated at $43 billion per year, the investment platform avails the means to correct the shortfalls, and create a conducive investment climate to drive the country’s development agenda.
Meanwhile, the platform has also been identified as an exciting prospect to assuage GIPC’s efforts in raising GH¢100 billion through investments as envisaged in the country’s Coronavirus Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprises Programme (Ghana CARES).
Already, the SDG Investor Map has pointed out Investment Opportunity Areas (IOAs) within five (5) identified priority sectors in Ghana – Agriculture, Infrastructure, Communications, Healthcare and Consumer Goods – where the private sector can explore.
Notable among these IOAs are; construction of affordable housing, provision of internet hotspots for rural areas, digitalisation of health care delivery, and scaling up aquaculture.
“We will go deeper in each of the five sectors so that we go beyond the provision of market and sector intelligence to actual money invested in Ghana. It is our hope, especially in this Decade of Action, that the SDG Investor Maps will accelerate investments needed to progress towards the achievement of the 2030 goals,” said the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Ghana, Silke Hollander.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri