ANDE West Africa launches Ghana entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot

The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) West Africa has launched the entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot of Ghana.

According to a statement made available to BusinessDay, the snapshot captures the current state of Ghana entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“Though Ghana is one of the largest economies in West Africa, a variety of gaps still pervades its entrepreneurial ecosystem. Some of these gaps are a lack of collaboration among actors and access to relevant information, mismatches in investment size supply and demand, poor access to markets, excessive cost of physical infrastructure, and limited access to finance among others,” the statement states.

“Despite these challenges, the small and growing business (SGB) sector is actively driving the country’s economy. According to Ghanaian government data, small and medium-sized businesses account for 70 percent of Ghana’s gross domestic product,” the statement adds.

ANDE conducted this entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot to identify organisations that actively support entrepreneurs in Ghana and the kind of support they provide, the statement says. The organisations include; investors, capacity development providers, business development support providers, professional service providers and government agencies, amongst others.

ANDE first conducted an entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot that focused on Accra only in 2017 but has now expanded on the work done in the capital city to include an overview of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in ten regions in Ghana.

The snapshot shows that organisations that support entrepreneurs in Ghana primarily focus on agriculture and that the top impact objective is typically capacity development, the statement states.

Also, it shows that the most-used financial instrument in the ecosystem is equity and the top non-financial support available in Ghana is access to networks and partners.

Josephine Okojie