At least 140 Macro-Small, and Medium Enterprises have completed their capacity building program under the inaugural MTN Ghana Foundation’s Enterprise Support Programme, a release has said.
The beneficiary 140 MSME owners also received a capital injection of up to 10,000 cedis each to support their businesses.
In total, the MTN Ghana Foundation invested one million Ghana cedis to support businesses of the beneficiaries after the training program.
Additionally, participants were enrolled on the MTN Momo Market, an e-commerce platform that offers beneficiary businesses the opportunity to showcase their products to an audience of over 20 million customers.
The beneficiaries received training in Bookkeeping, Business Model Innovation, Financing your Business, Business Cost and Pricing, Design Thinking, Branding, Sales, and Marketing,
They were also trained in Business Management, Financial Literacy, Digital Marketing, and Customer Service.
Apart from technical knowledge for business growth and sustainability, the training also adopted the experiential approach with peer-to-peer teaching and learning and networking opportunities.
Adwoa Wiafe Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer of MTN said the program is MTN Foundation’s way of helping to address the significant challenge of access to capital faced by MSMEs in the country.
Adwoa Wiafe Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer of MTN
That way, Wiafe said the five-year programme complements the government’s efforts to build a sustainable livelihood for business owners from low-income communities.
“We are pleased with the impact that this programme has had on the livelihoods of the beneficiaries in the first year,” she added.
The official pledged that MTN Ghana Foundation would continue to improve upon the implementation and monitoring of the project in the second year to enhance its impact on the beneficiaries and their businesses.
,”I thoroughly enjoyed the training. I learned about the benefits of proper branding, customer experience, marketing, communication, and branding which I will apply to improve the way I do business,” one of the beneficiaries said.
Another beneficiary, who is a person living with a disability, said, “I like everything about the training. The trainer taught us in Twi, so we understood it well. We can now manage our business, maintain our customers, and attract new ones.”
The MTN Enterprise Support Program is a legacy project of MTN Ghana and was established in 2021 to commemorate the company’s 25th Anniversary.
The initiative was launched in 2023 and being implemented in partnership with the Innohub Foundation, targeting youth, women, and differently abled led-MSMEs and aims to support 500 MSMEs in Ghana over the next five years.
The training modules were designed to address the needs of beneficiaries identified during the initial needs assessment.
The second year of the project will be launched in April 2024, where another group of MSMEs from three regions will be invited to submit applications.’
The shortlisted MSMEs will be given the opportunity to pitch for the grant, and the successful beneficiaries will be selected for onboarding for the 2024 edition.