Background and objectives
Small-scale women farmers and youth in Ghana face challenges in expanding their businesses or starting new ones due to limited skills, educational opportunities, and support systems. New strategies are needed to open alternative paths to entrepreneurial success.
The Youth and Rural Women Entrepreneurship: Creating and Sustaining Alternative Livelihoods Options in Ghana (Y&RWE) Project aims to support rural women working in agricultural-related businesses in the Sekesua Community to nurture alternative income sources by bringing together women gari (toasted cassava flour) processors and university graduates to explore their mutual interests in developing agriculture-related businesses.
This project seeks to:
- Identify the challenges faced by rural women in the cassava-gari value chain.
- Assess their training needs.
- Identify desired alternative livelihood options of interest to women gari processors.
- Encourage and support the creation of joint agriculture enterprises between university graduates and rural women.
This project is a collaboration between McGill University, the University of Ghana Nutrition Research and Training Centre (NRTC), the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI).
Funding: McGill University Mastercard Foundation Transitions Fund Project
Who is it for?
The project brought together a hundred women gari processors in the Sekesua community and seven university graduate teams to explore mutual interest in developing new agriculture-related businesses.
The following alternative livelihoods were proposed by women gari processors and served as the basis for developing a targeted call for proposals for graduates:
- Animal husbandry
- Soap making
- Mushroom and cashew farming
- Retailing
- Palm oil production
- Pastry making.
Information about these desired alternative livelihood options allowed the graduates to think innovatively about the business ideas they could explore with the women gari processors to benefit themselves and these rural women.
What the project did?
The entrepreneurial needs of 100 women gari processors were assessed in the Eastern Region of Ghana to identify alternative livelihood options and training needs through a needs and collaboration opportunity assessment.
The following training needs were identified by women gari processors:
- Basic literacy and numeracy skills
- Financial and business management: Bookkeeping, record keeping, saving, and investing.
- Professional training: customer relations and building professional networks.
- Product development: Adding value to Gari through fortification, producing variants for different buyers, manufacturing organic fertilizers from cassava peels, and better packaging.
- Marketing skills: How to identify and exploit new markets and negotiate prices
- Safety and hygiene training
Training sessions were conducted to foster understanding and promote respectful collaboration between women gari processors and university graduates in their joint enterprises. The women's training took place in person at the University of Ghana Nutrition Research and Training Center located in Asesewa, and that for graduates took place virtually via Zoom Video Conferencing.
The training sessions can be found at training materials.
Methods
The project involved a hundred rural women and seven university graduate teams who were trained and supported to create an alternative source of income.
The women
A needs assessment was conducted to identify the challenges of the existing gari-making business, as well as other desired alternative livelihood options among rural women in the cassava-gari value chain. From their experiences, these rural women identified critical problems and opportunities in the community and proposed alternative livelihood options. The women also expressed interest in training to identify and exploit new markets and negotiate prices. The project organized training sessions to equip rural women with financial management and leadership skills to manage a successful business. Before interacting with university graduates, the project team hired a business coach to explain core business principles to the women.
The needs assessment provided an overview of the challenges the rural women in the cassava-gari value chain face and the training needs of these women.
The university graduates
A call for applications was launched to invite university graduates or graduate teams across Ghana interested in agriculture-related businesses to submit their business proposals. Seven top graduate teams were selected from a pool of twenty-six team applicants and allowed to interact with the hundred Sekesua women.
The key criteria were for the applicants to elaborate on how their innovative business ideas address or respond to the identified needs/challenges in Sekesua, business scalability, and how they envision collaborating with the Sekesua women to ensure mutual benefit.
Graduate - Women interactions
Through Graduate-Women interactions, the seven graduate teams presented their business proposals to the women, and the women joined the team whose business aligned with their interests.
The seven teams of university graduates and Sekesua women were formed and taken through a series of entrepreneurial training modules to equip all members with the necessary knowledge and skills to ensure success and mutual benefits in their newly joint businesses.
The seven teams pitched their business ideas to a panel of judges on the 20th of September, 2023, at the Accra International Conference Center during a national entrepreneurship pitch competition as part of AGI's Ghana Industrial Summit and Exhibition 2023. Three viable businesses (oyster mushroom farming, snail farming, and composite flour pastry production) were chosen to tap into a pool of funds for their start-ups. Each viable business has been mentored to develop and present business budgets after the contest. Currently, the three businesses have been established in the Sekesua community.
How much is the award?
Three viable businesses (oyster mushroom farming, snail farming, and composite flour pastry production) were selected during the Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition to share 30,000 CAD for their newly formed enterprises in Sekesua.
The pitch competition event can be seen at: AGI Ghana Industrial Summit & Exhibition 2023
Our PIs
Priscilla Boadi
Prof. Thomas Anning-Dorson
Dr. Grace Marquis
Prof. Richmond Aryeetey
Dr. Diana Dallmann
Dr. Agartha Ohemeng
Abubakar Mohammed
Academic partners
University of Ghana Nutrition Research and Training Center, Ghana
Dr. Agatha Ohemeng
University of Ghana Business School, Ghana
Dr. George Acheampong
Industry partners
Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana
Johnson Opoku Boateng
Johnson has since 2010, been teaching Food Safety and HACCP at the Food Science and Nutrition department at the University of Ghana in their Food Safety & HACCP summer training programme, which pulls participants from manufacturing industries across the sub-region, government institutions, hospitals etc. He has also served as the Ag. CEO of GS1 Ghana, a company responsible for issuing barcodes to manufacturing and some service clients for an annual fee. In addition to managing QA Consult, a company he founded, he is the Director of Business Development Services at the Association of Ghana Industries.
Johnson Opoku-Boateng has worked with local and international agencies in areas of Business Development, Quality and Food Safety to support businesses in the manufacturing, hospitality, and service sectors of the economy. He has expertise in Business Development to support SME’s, Quality and Food Safety Management Systems, Capacity Building and Organisational Development, ISO Management Systems, Supply Chain Management, and Research & Development (Food and Cosmetics).
Daniel Okyere Tweneboah
