By Issah Mohammed
Accra, Nov 15, GNA – About 270 Ghanaian enterprises from 10 regions in the country are to be trained under phase III of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme beginning next year.
The €400,000 programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under the “Invest for Jobs” initiative is to help selected enterprises improve productivity, resource efficiency and working conditions.
It is to be implemented by the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) within a nine-month period under the supervision of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
Speaking at the Launch of the programme, Mr John Duti, the Team Leader of Invest for Jobs, urged Ghanaian enterprises to make environmental protection a core of their operations.
He said while the country needed to grow economically, it should not be at the expense of the environment, which needed to be sustained for the well-being of citizens and future generations.
He, therefore, urged Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt green processes and technologies to grow the green economy.
“The Just Transition paradigm means working towards a green transformation of the economy while promoting decent employment, social inclusion, poverty eradication and gender equality at the same time. That’s what SCORE is doing,” he said.
In 2021, GIZ Ghana under its flagship “Invest for Jobs” programme, signed a first grant agreement with the MDPI to train 60 SMEs based on the SCORE methodology.
Subsequently, a second grant agreement was signed in August 2022 to train an additional 74 SMEs.
Madam Bernice Adjei, Director General of MDPI, said the crucial role of the SMEs in growing the Ghanaian economy warranted more interventions targeted at improving their efficiency and productivity.
She commended the German government for the support and urged it to consider procuring Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for trainees especially those from the northern part of the country.
She observed there were enterprises operating in unfavourable working conditions adding that “most of the enterprises are not protected and sometimes what they are doing have a lot of fumes and the tools are not adequate for what they do”.
SCORE is a global training programme that seeks to improve workplace organisation, cooperation, and safety in SMEs and promote resource-efficient and cleaner production.
SCORE combines practical classroom sessions with in-factory consulting on best international practices in the growth of manufacturing and service sectors of enterprises, job creation and economic development.
The SCORE Training modules cover Workplace Cooperation, Quality Improvement, Resource Efficiency, Workforce Management, Occupational Safety and Health at Work, Lean Manufacturing, Gender Equality, Responsible Business, Hospitality Coaching and Working Time.
In Ghana, the programme was launched in 2011 and funded by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, (SECO) till 2021 when the German government took over the rollout of the programme.
GNA