The recommendations, contained in a report to be released at the inaugural Ghana Impact Dialogue, in Accra, tomorrow, December 6, are also expected to help bring together impact investors, entrepreneurs, investors, and market builders to form a National Advisory Board (NAB) that would allow Ghana to be admitted into the GSG.

Impact investors put money into business enterprises, not only to make profit but to also achieve social or environmental impacts in the communities where the businesses operate.  Mr Amit Bhatia, the Chief Executive Officer of the GSG, revealed this to the Ghana News Agency, at the sidelines of the maiden Accra SDGs Investment Fair, in Accra, on Wednesday.

He said the global impact investment movement had grown over the last 20 years to about $22 trillion, including $16 trillion in responsible investing, six trillion dollars in sustainable investing and a quarter of a trillion dollars in impact investing.

 The GSG currently has 21 countries plus the European Union, as members, and works to build a global ecosystem for impact investment where money can be redirected to pursue not just wealth maximisation and financial returns; but social or environmental impact.

Mr Bhatia said the GSG’s research on Ghana showed that there was a vibrant but early-stage impact investment system with total investments worth about $1.6 billion investments in various sectors, including healthcare, renewable energy, education and sanitation, among others.

“The opportunity in Ghana is that this can grow many fold,” he said, adding that recommendation to be presented could help the sector in Ghana grow three times in the next decade.

Mr. Bhatia noted that impact investment tied in to Ghana’s quest to move beyond aid by unlocking capital that not only made profit for investors at the same time as it made impact by helping to solve social problems.

“The world has discovered over the last two decades that we can do good, and do well together. You can get both returns and get social or environmental impact together and if you can do that why will you pursue a lonely strategy of just giving away money?” he asked,

Ghana, he said, could embrace impact investing as it was in line with its national strategy of moving beyond aid. He explained that many entrepreneurs and enterprises in Ghana were not ready for impact investments thus the need for National Advisory Board (NAB), comprising leaders, who would think and strategise about how to prepare Ghanaian enterprises to receive big money.

The GSG was born out of the Social Impact Investment Taskforce in 2015, set up by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, when it presided over the G8. It aims at unlocking capital for social entrepreneurs just as it was done for technical and business entrepreneurs.