The National Project Coordinator for the United Kingdom Trade Partnership Project, implemented by the International Trade Centre, Theresah Ayesu, has described as successful its maiden Market Place Forum held in Accra on.
The Forum which took place on October 10 at the Labadi Beach Hotel, focused on aiding female Cocoa processors and chocolatiers in producing export-ready products for the EU and UK markets.
The occasion was marked by an Investor Market Forum, a finance-focused event facilitating connections between women entrepreneurs and financial/non-financial institutions.
Speaking to journalists at the sidelines of the event, Madam Ayesu noted that the initial target was to assist four women, but the response exceeded expectations with over 40 women from the agribusiness sector participating.
The National Project Coordinator described the forum as "extremely successful," emphasizing the engagement in panel sessions.
She however acknowledged what she described as a serious challenge of finance during due diligence, leading to the initiative.
"What we are doing today is an investor market forum, a finance forum where we are seeking to assist women to meet financial and non-financial institutions to see if they will be able to get some sort of investment or funding from all these organisations. During our due diligence, we realised finance is a serious challenge so we felt it will be a good thing or a step in the right direction if we put this together," she said.
The Investor Marketplace Forum, is a groundbreaking initiative tailored to visionary women-owned and women-led businesses of Ghana. The initiative is under the auspices of the UK Trade Partnership project, which is being implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
It was designed and funded by the UKTP project in Ghana, and the ITC/A4A partnership with the Innohub Foundation, to empower and uplift the women entrepreneurs in Ghana.
About (UKTP) Programme
The United Kingdom Trade Partnerships (UKTP) Programme is one of the implementing partners of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's Trade Centre of Expertise (CoE) - a new mechanism established to provide a streamlined offer for developing countries and UK High Commissions to access high quality trade-related technical assistance.
Particularly, UKTP contributes to the Trade CoE's Making trade happen priorities, boosting uptake of UK trade agreements (EPAs and DCTS) through supporting and facilitating access to UK markets, linking businesses, strengthening the resilience of supply chains; and improving participation of marginalised groups, including women-owned businesses in trade.
The UKTP Programme aims to increase trade from developing countries to the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) by maximizing the benefits of UK and EU Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the UK's Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS).
The UKTP Programme works in partnership with government agencies, private sector organisations, public sector institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises and other local stakeholders. Target beneficiaries of the programme will be export-ready SMEs who are committed to securing new trade opportunities with the UK.
In Ghana, the project has been supporting women-led businesses by building their capacity to be competitive and resilient in their production to enable them to enhance their export potentials, gaining access to finance to expand their businesses whilst making them investor-ready. The Investor Marketplace Forum is a maiden event that is designed to accelerate the success of Women-Led/owned Businesses (WLBs) in the Agribusiness sector by facilitating meaningful connections and partnerships between WLBs, financial institutions and non-financial institutions.
Some of the participants at the workshop