President Akufo-Addo (inset) speaking at the summit yesterday
Government has issued a directive that 50% of the loans that are to be disbursed by the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) must go to women engaged in small-scale farming and businesses.
President Akufo-Addo made the announcement at the closing ceremony of the ‘2018 Ghana Women Entrepreneurship Summit’ in Accra yesterday.
The event was put together by the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI).
Speaking at the programme, President Akufo-Addo indicated that his government has put in place a deliberate policy of strengthening the capacity of local businesses by ensuring that 70% of all government-funded contracts or projects are awarded to local contractors and 30% of these contracts or projects are to be awarded to women.
He indicated that 500, 000 farmers are covered by the Planting for Food and Jobs programme this year as opposed to 200,000 last year, adding that the programme seeks to enhance agricultural productivity through the provision of improved seedlings, subsidised fertilisers, and the availability of extension officers to assist the farmers.
Measures
He pointed out that women empowerment has been given a tremendous boost by the implementation of his government’s Free Senior High School policy.
Last year alone, he revealed, “90,000 more students, the majority of whom were girls entered senior high school than in 2016”, saying “our educational reforms are all-encompassing while technical and vocational education have also been scaled up, which will benefit many young girls, to equip our youth with the skills necessary for the construction of a modern economy.”
He stressed that “we are making systematic efforts to meet our goal of gender parity in the distribution of public offices, both at the centre and at the districts, for we see the two sides of political and economic reform as two sides of the same coin for promoting gender equality and women empowerment.”
On the restructuring of the NBSSI undertaken by government, President Akufo-Addo assured that Ghanaians will shortly see an institution with a renewed drive on providing first class enterprise development services to MSMEs.
“It will co-ordinate all programmes designed to integrate the MSMEs into agricultural and industrial value chains with market linkages to investment opportunities, being promoted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, under our flagship “One District, One Factory” initiative, and other industrial initiatives, and by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture under the programme for Planting for Food and Jobs,” he said.
Achieving SDG 5
As co-Chair of the SDG Advocates Group of Eminent Personalities, President Akufo-Addo emphasised that the realisation of SDG No. 5, by the target date of 2030, requires all government to work towards gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.
“The reality in Ghana is that, despite some significant progress, we still have some way to go towards the realisation of this goal. Indeed, the role and participation of women in the economic and political landscape have not been to the desired levels,” he admitted.
The President, however, posited that, in spite of this, over the past decade, the number of women entrepreneurs has increased considerably.
“Be they in agro-processing, creative arts, textile or clothing design, the financial or trading sectors, women entrepreneurs have become an important part of the entrepreneurial landscape, with latest figures from the NBSSI indicating that 44% of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are owned by women,” he added.
President Akufo-Addo was confident that this number can be increased if more women entrepreneurs are given the maximum push and support in their endeavours.
“Women’s economic empowerment is one of the world’s most promising areas of investment with almost instant results, i.e. the reduction and eventual eradication of poverty and widespread unemployment,” he stressed.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent