For two-days they would be taken through the rudiments of best business management practices.

Speaking about the rationale, Doreen Kweiba Iliasu, Head - Legal, Stanbic Bank, said it was meant to assist women overcome the many challenges they faced in the entrepreneurship space.   “We came up with this initiative in recognition of the struggles of women in entrepreneurship and the need to help them overcome the challenges and succeed.   

From Stanbic, we have two messages for you: the first, for women, we say Stanbic Bank is here to help you move forward; the second is to everyone, we emphasize that advancing women is good for business, good for society and great for Africa’s prospects.”

Angela Mensah-Poku, Vodafone Ghana’s Director of Enterprise Business Unit said they were excited about the partnership with Stanbic because female entrepreneurs formed 35 per cent of the over 4,000 SMEs the company had been engaging through its various activities across the nation.

Again, it was also passionate about diversity and Inclusion and continued to drive gender equality in every aspect of their operations.  “Our preoccupation is to make women entrepreneurs ready for the future - to compete on the international level and to be the shining light in using modern digital trends and platforms to thrive in their businesses.

We will continue to find ways to provide opportunities for businesses to realize their ambitions for the future”, she added.    The female labour force participation rate in Ghana is estimated at 50.5 per cent and women account for about 50.2 per cent of the entire population of Ghana (Ghana Statistical Services, 2014).

It is roughly calculated that 80 per cent of Ghanaian women are engaged in various economic activities and they predominate in the informal micro, small to medium scale agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors of the economy. They, however, have been participating in labour markets on unequal basis with their male counterparts. In 2017, the male employment-to-population ratio stood at 72.2 per cent, while that for females was 47.1 percent.

The formal sector employs about 6.2 per cent of them, 3.3 per cent in the public sector and 2.9 per cent in the private sector. The workshop is therefore seen a bold attempt to deal with the problems that face both potential and existing Ghanaian entrepreneurs, to provide entrepreneurial capacity development to young Ghanaians through a broad spectrum of incubator projects - to develop skills relevant in today’s fast paced tech-driven world.