Empower women to become entrepreneurs

Madam Lydia Annan, the Sunyani Municipal head of Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) has reiterated that women need to be empowered to become young entrepreneurs in the society.

He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at the end of a five-day Innovative and Creative Entrepreneurship (ICE) training workshop for young entrepreneurs in Sunyani and attended by 30 participants aged between 18 and 35 years aimed at developing the youth particularly women with innovative ideas to become potential job makers.

Madam Annan noted that the country needed entrepreneurs and sustainable enterprises to strengthen the economy and curb the unemployment situation in the country.

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She said the participants would be linked to well-established businessmen in their various communities to serve as their mentors and coach them to become firm in the business environment for economic development. 

Madam Annan said to establish and sustain a business, it required innovation of new ideas and existing technologies, adding that the training would guide the youth to develop interest to initiate job for them and employ others as well.

Mr Richard Ntim, the GEA facilitator who spoke on a topic, managerial processes and factors to continually improve business, charged beneficiaries to add new features to their businesses to attract new customers.

He entreated entrepreneurs to consider the trend of the market and know the urgent needs of customers to keep them in their business. 

Mr Ntim observed that political, economic and socio-cultural business environment were some key factors to be considered in setting up business since such factors determined the purchasing power and could affect sustainability and improvement of businesses. 

He emphasized that genuine customers could be reached with good communication skills to identify customer’s need as well as knowing the market challenges.

Mr Ntim stated that for entrepreneurs to sustain their businesses they needed to look for co-founders who were knowledgeable in business, time management and human resource planning.

The human resource planning Mr. Ntim stated would prepare successors to take over the business in the future when the manager becomes weak, retired or died.

Mr Kwadwo Akomea Sakyi, a participant commended the GEA for the training opportunity given to the youth in the Municipality for job creation.