Financial Inclusion for Enterprise Development

The project aims to increase employment especially for women in growth-oriented and employment generating value chains in Ghana. To do so it seeks to improve access to formal financial services with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) women small business owners and vulnerable groups. The project supports technical assistance and training to improve the capacity of savings and loans institution Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans to provide more affordable capital and a wider range of more inclusive and gender sensitive services to small SMEs and microfinance beneficiaries. The project also seeks to create business-to-business linkages and networking opportunities to empower women entrepreneurs to innovate and grow their businesses in a view to strengthen inclusive economic growth. Key project activities include: (1) providing financial literacy and business training to women entrepreneurs; (2) providing support for trade fairs and exhibitions to promote networking; (3) organizing campaigns to raise awareness on financial services available and the socio-economic gender barriers to women and business; (4) performing sectoral analysis and research; and (5) training local partners to better undertake institutional assessments and client surveys using a gender-based approach.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased productive and financial capacity of SMEs especially those triggering and leveraging women’s economic empowerment in growth-oriented labour-intensive value chains in Ghana; and (2) improved capacity of financial institutions to support socially-responsible commercially viable and environmentally sustainable business models in Ghana.