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Ghana is set to have a funding space to provide innovators the opportunity to interact and sell their ideas to potential donors. The funding space will provide information on access to funding to enhance the growth of locally grown enterprises in sectors such as health, education, energy, agriculture and jobs creation.
This was disclosed by the Chief Executive Officer of Social Innovation Africa, Ms. Anatu Ben-Lawal at the 1st Stakeholder Consultative Meeting held in collaboration with the SDGs Philanthropy Platform of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to discuss ways to initiate a funding space in Ghana.
Realizing the struggle entrepreneurs and social enterprises go through before implementing an innovation, the Chief Executive Officer of Social Innovation Africa, Ms. Anatu Ben-Lawal identified the need for solutions to build entrepreneurial activities in Africa. She emphasized the need for an advocacy platform to improve an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and one of this is the creation of funding space.
Ms. Lawal underscored that, “we need to see entrepreneurs and social enterprises getting funding hence the need to establish the funding space as one of the activities in Ghana to help passionate entrepreneurs grow their businesses”.
A beneficiary of the funding space in Nigeria, Sinari Daraniyo, revealed that, funding space has supported him in improving the first natural gel called ‘Afriwood’ which was born out of the desire to take African products to the world.
“Through funding space, we have broadened our scope and have moved from just selling products to women in the village to teaching them and empowering as well as getting finance for them in addition to vocational training”, he added.
Stakeholders at the meeting, however noted that, the funding space although has lot of benefits for businesses, it cannot address all problems in a country. So, there is the need to delve into priorities of every country that is of interest to investors.
The Funding Space is an initiative providing a learning, creative, and partnership development space which brings together local and international experts in social entrepreneurship and fundraising, impact investors, venture capitalists, and financial institutions to facilitate sessions on accessing finance for business growth. It has provided a platform to access finance, impact investing, training and networking in many countries including Nigeria.
