By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Airport Ridge (WR), Sept. 2, GNA – The SNV Ghana under the “GrEEn Innovation Challenge 2022” is to award 15 small and medium-sized businesses some 25,000 Euros to boost their operations, create more jobs and promote environmental sustainability.
The concept dubbed; ‘GrEEn Innovation Challenge 2022’ falls under the Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn) and is aimed at much economic empowerment for youth, women and returning migrants.
Mr Sadda Laouali, the Project Manager, said at the GrEEn Innovation Challenge 2022 launch in Takoradi that addressing one of the key issues for the development of MSMEs leading to jobs creation was access to finance.
“We know how access to finance is so important for all our interventions for the youth and more again MSMEs and this is why the project is keen on these matching grants to promoting Job Creation,” he said.
He said the launch was to expose participants, especially those under the various incubation processes with the project, to learn from earlier beneficiaries and become well informed about the activity; the requirements, the processes, the application, and also the way forward.”
Mr Laouali used the opportunity to thank all partners supporting the green project to create the needed social impacts.
Mrs Genevieve Parker-Twum, the Senior Incubation and Accerelation Advisor at the SNV encouraged the participants to take all training seriously as it was one measure of selection for the award of grants.
She said the GrEEn project was also to enable society to go back to some old environmental practices that promoted sustainability.
The Senior Advisor stressed the need for the incubators to create concepts that created more jobs and solve environmental issues.
Mr Patrick Akowuah, the Western Regional Director of Agriculture, said the desire for SNV to increase innovations, advocacy and high-level engagement in climate change and other forms of environmental degradation was commendable.
He said the focus on agriculture, renewable energy and the WASH sector would ultimately help in climate mitigation measures.
The Director of Agriculture said the Ministry hoped to modernize agriculture through research…” the collaboration between the Ministry and SNV is to build synergies and coordination to provide technical support for SMEs.”
The project in 2021 awarded 1.17million cedis under the maiden GrEEn Innovations Challenge to 12 businesses; six from the Ashanti Region, one from the Greater Accra Region and five from Western Region.
GNA