November 26, 2016
The State of Social Enterprise in Ghana
Ghana has come to embrace the concept of social entrepreneurship as one of the models to solving societal issues. The concept is still being unpacked by many businesses in Ghana to fully understand how the model works. There have been no definite path for social enterprises in Ghana and the concept is yet to be integrated into policies. Also, there is limited availability of data about the number of social enterprises that exist in Ghana and how they operate. To help fill the knowledge gap about the social enterprises and their activities in Ghana, the British Council’s Global Social Entrepreneurship programme commissioned a survey to “better understand the profile of social enterprises in Ghana including through providing an estimate of the current size and scale of the social enterprise sector in the country.”
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Demographics
The study which surveyed about 98 social enterprises in the four major cities (Kumasi, Accra, Tamale and Takoradi ) in Ghana pointed out that most of the leaders of social enterprises are young people and about 40% of them are women. According to the survey, “the number of women in social enterprises in Ghana are almost three times higher than the proportion of female senior managers in mainstream businesses. About 43% of people in charge of social enterprises are between the ages of 25 and 34. The next largest age group is the 45-64 age group (27%), followed by those aged between 35 and 44 (22%), with only 2% of the social enterprises being run by people older than 65. Female social enterprise leaders are more likely to focus on health objectives, to support beneficiaries in their local community, and to hire female staff.”
About 43% of people in charge of social enterprises are between the ages of 25 and 34.
Economic Impact
The 98 surveyed social enterprises have created a total of 958 jobs (based on staff numbers in 2015), have impacted the lives of 103,148 beneficiaries and have generated a combined turnover of £1.4 million (almost 8 million cedis) in the last year and about 66% of them are full time employees. Almost all social enrterprises anticipate increase in the number of staff, growth in their venture and about 77% increase in turnover in the coming year. Almost “60% of the social enterprises in Ghana focus on creating employment opportunities, expand into new geographic areas, attract new customers or clients, attract investment to expand, increase sales with existing customers and win business as part of a consortium.
60% of the social enterprises in Ghana focus on creating employment opportunities
Dominant Sectors
There are two main sectors in Ghana that social enterprises work in, they are, education and agriculture with education social enterprises being particularly dominant in Accra and agricultural social enterprises most common in the North. However, the education sector tops followed by agriculture, manufacturing, services, retails and housing.
The top sector that social enterprises work in is education.
According to the study, “based on the very small unrepresentative sampling process, there may be as many as 26,000 social enterprises currently operating in Ghana, with growth expected.” One of the major barriers faced by surveyed social enterprises in Ghana is financial and over two-thirds see difficulties to obtain grant funding as problematic. Other barriers stated in the survey include, cash flow, lack of access to support and advisory services, understanding/awareness of social enterprise among banks and support organisations and shortage of technical skills.
Is there a policy in Ghana supporting social enterprises?
According to the survey, “there is currently no legislation in Ghana directly mentioning or supporting social enterprises. However, social enterprises are impacted by existing legislation.” The study also suggested insight into where legislative change could support social enterprise development. There is no category for social enterprises to register themselves as in Ghana. The legal forms available to social enterprises in Ghana has sole proprietorship as the most commonly used among social enterprise survey respondents (38%). To help develop policies that will supoort the work of social enterprises in Ghana,the British Council is now working with a technical consultant (from Social Enterprise UK), the Social Entrepreneurs Ghana Network (SE Ghana) and MoTI to develop a social enterprise policy.
This study was led by Emily Darko (initially at ODI then UnLtd) with support from Shelagh Whitley and Richard Hughes (ODI), and conducted and written up in partnership with Social Enterprise UK (SEUK – team led by Nick Temple, with Dan Gregory, Martin Cooper and Charlotte de Ruyver), Betterstories (team led by Minhaz Anwar, with Anhar Athoi, Farhana Islam and Muhaimin Khan), Social Innovation Lab at Lahore University of Management Sciences (team led by Maryam Mohiuddin Ahmed, with Saad Idress and Arslan Khalid) and Songhai Advisory (team led by Kissy Agyeman-Togobo, with Lord-Gustav Togobo, Courage Kweson and Emmanuel Amoah-Darkwah).
For the full report, please read here.
Sources:
- https://www.britishcouncil.org/society/social-enterprise/news-events/reports-survey-social-enterprise-BGD-GHA-IND-PAK
- https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/social-enterprise-report-ghana-2pp-digital.pdf
Basharat Saeed is a 20 year old Home Economics student at the University of Cape Coast. Basharat strongly persuaded her parents from studying science at Wesley Girls High School, Cape Coast, in order to study her passion – fashion. At Wesley Girls High School, she won the best dress designer and best clothing and textile student. In her four years of following her passion, some of her clients include her lecturers and some prominent people in Ghana. Her company, XBash sows and sell clothing and accessories for both sexes and seeks to bring an exclusively and exquisite touch to the fashion industry in the world by fuding old trends with existing ones.
Papa Oppong Bediako, the 23 year old guy has already started printing his name in the African fashion industry. He discovered his love for fashion at a very early age in life and pursued his passion to become one of the young renowned fashion designers he is today. In 2013, Papa began work on his very first collection which he named: “A Celebration of Darkness”. In the same year, in 2013, Papa was selected to intern at Studio 189; a fashion brand owned by fashion guru Abrimah Erwiah and Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson. In 2014, Papa Oppong also interned with the UN’s Ethical Fashion Initiative which provided locals with skills and training in fashion and garment production. Although very young, Papa Oppong has firmly planted his feet into the African fashion industry. He has been featured in a number of both local and international publications including the UK’s fashion illustration magazine: DASH Magazine (2012) and Ghana’s fashion and lifestyle magazine: Dream Magazine (2014). Legit retail, a fashion retailer in South Africa, also highlighted the young designer in their end-of-year catalogue (2014). Papa’s illustrations have also gained him international attention from celebrities such as singer: Kelly Rowland, singer: Rihanna, model Amber Rose and international celebrity stylist: Ty Hunter, who all follow his social media accounts. In 2015, Papa Oppong was contacted by global cosmetics brand: M.A.C to be an illustrator for their official launch in Ghana. The event saw Papa Oppong create lip illustrations of invited guests live. 2015 also saw one of the biggest moments in the young designer’s life when he was featured on CNN’s “African Voices” program which highlighted the young designer’s life and journey in fashion through a short documentary.
The 24 year old lady hails from Nakpanduri in the Northern Region and is the founder and project director of 
Kofi Tonto is a man of many hats. He is an entrepreneur and an avid supporter of the Pan African movement. He currently serves as the Executive Director of a U.S. based organization called 
Gifty incorporated Tigo’s Corporate Communications and Responsibility department and with her team has built a great brand for the company. One of Gifty’s top initiatives include, Shelter 4 Education which involved the construction of four brand new schools and the renovation of two others in rural Ghana and other innovative projects which led her company to win the “Best CSR Company of the Year Award” at the 2015 Ghana Telecom Awards and “CSR Telecom Company of the Year” at the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards 2015. She was also the first Communications Manager and official Spokesperson for the British High Commission, Ghana, I developed the UK in Ghana’s Public Engagement Strategy and managed public diplomacy on a wide range of policy issues. She was named the 2014 PR Discovery of the Year at the prestigious Institute of Public Relations Awards 2015.
I would like to commend the great work of Reuben, a 21 year old senior high school graduate from Shama Senior High school who took the risk to solo ride across the ten regions of Ghana in fundraising for the Ghana Cleft foundation. He is the first person in Ghana to do a solo ride in Ghana and as a means to raise funds for a social good. Beuben took 90 days to ride across the country to raise GHC2,500 so far plus other monies which were paid directly into the accounts of the Ghana Cleft foundation.
August 16, 2017
Do Young Ghanaian Entrepreneurs Build Start-ups to Survive or to Create Impact?
Few weeks ago, I had a very interesting conversation with Sesinam Dagadu, a well respected young Ghanaian tech entrepreneur and creator of the Snoocode navigation app, about the start-up ecosystem in Ghana. I asked of his views on why many promising start-ups spring up in Ghana, but go extinct in about 3-5 years of operation.
He said, “you know what? Many young Ghanaian innovators innovate to survive. In other words, they are motivated to innovate to be able to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. They don’t innovate only because they have the passion for what they are doing or to help solve societal problems”.
Rasheeda Yehuza, founder of Nasara Tech, also argues that “there’s nothing wrong with building a business to survive if you do not have a safety net. In fact, it’s commendable that instead of looking for a job, an entrepreneur is willing to fight for what they believe in while struggling to eat. I don’t know the statistics, but I’m sure on average more startups fail yearly in the established markets than the whole of Africa combined… In developed markets they have the flexibility to test the waters, make connections and find a job in a a reputable company if their startup fails, because, when that person’s startup failed, there’s so much to learn from them’. Over here we don’t have that luxury. If your startup fails, you will struggle to feed yourself, and we don’t have an established community to pick you back up. “
Perhaps this is the reason why Ghana receives less funding for the start-up ecosystem than its sister country Nigeria. In 2016, according to a report released by Partech Ventures, Ghana received about $8.67million as total investment raised by start-ups as compared to a whooping $109.37 million raised by the Nigerian ecosystem.
Has the media and conferences been helpful?
Many believe that most innovations or startups in Ghana don’t thrive because they are mostly motivated by the “wrong reasons”. Another factor for failure of these startups is what I call the “unnecessary media hype”. Many young folks build start-ups to get the “media and conference panelist” recognition. Many of these young folks don’t have the patience to build a working model which will yield extreme long term benefits, but prefer to do a quick fix for short term recognition and then phase out after the media hype shifts to another start-up.
In a Facebook interaction with Kobby Blay, a nurse and founder of GhanahealthNest.com, he indicated that the media is to blame for poor work done. He said, “May be we should share the blame of the ‘unnecessary media hype’ to the media persons, who fail to do proper probing”. Many seasoned entrepreneurs believe that, young entrepreneurs build products to showcase at conferences without any sustainable plan.
Godwin Martey, CEO of Websoft Solutions, shared his view on the issue, he said “I started building Websoft in 2007, and I ensured I never showed up on any platform or any media till I had built a system in 2013. That was 6 good years of grinding. Most of these folks showing up in every conference and collecting awards have no foundations, no working model, no proper cash-flow, no serious assets, nothing. They just go about empty enjoying a transient hype that will eventually put them in trouble. Until 2013, I never called myself CEO, I was always Marketing Officer for Websoft Solutions for 6 years, then I changed it to Head of Operations and then when the business grew further I became the CEO. Many people want to start with the glory before they write the story. It’s Sad.”
Francis Birikorang, co-founder of AgroCenta, also stated that “the hype will take you there, due diligence will bring you back empty handed”. Other people are of the view that the media plays a critical role in helping start-ups in Ghana succeed. “They could have the motive of survival and that is not wrong. They could get media hype and that is ok. If they had the safety net, capital and efficient incubator hubs with business support and advisory services, most of them will turn out very ok. They do the media and attend conferences for visibility, hoping it will land them the right networks and capital.” says Ms. Louise Clara Donkor, former SRC President at the University of Ghana.
“Africa is a very green territory and mostly innovators don’t go looking for media but media comes to them since they happen to fall in a unique spot. if local media finds you in your early stage, due to ignorance in the field, they may hype you in a way that annoy those who know.. but who do you blame? Ignorance! But then, all these are good and have to happen for the ecosystem to grow. Start a game company now and CNN will find you.. why? because it’s new in the territory (but not in the world). After 10 years, it wouldn’t be new anymore since a lot more would have been done by us the early birds and due to the encouragement instilled, more game developers would have been made” says Eyram Tawiah, co-founder of Leti Arts.
The Safety Net
One other key factor that Sesinam indicated was that, most young Ghanaians don’t have a “safety net” as they intend to build start-ups. He said “the people who built Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc had the privilege to be able to even quit attending Ivy league schools. You can’t take such a huge risk as a young Ghanaian. In fact, if a young Ghanaian dreams to quit Harvard and follow his passion, he will wake up from his sleep and apologise to himself for having such a dream. I respect young Ghanaians who are building businesses in Ghana because I am not sure I would have had access to the opportunities and courage to start up my tech business in Ghana if I lived all my life in Ghana “. Even though the environment plays a role in how successful a start-up could be, some entrepreneurs like Kwabena Danso, CEO of Boomers International, believes that there are other equally important factors. He said ” when you have a business you are passionate about, you do not think about it failing in the first place. You are always looking at what will make you thrive and succeed. The fear of failure will not be part of the thinking. It is only when you have jumped onto the wagon with the intention of getting what you can get is when you also become afraid of failing. I understand the environment plays part in a lot of businesses failing but most businesses are failing as a result of unwise decisions from the entrepreneurs”
No Market for the Start-ups?
Is the non-existence of a ready market to buy the products of these start-ups the primary reason for their failure? The President and founder of mPedigree, a mobile application technology that is able to identify fake products by texting a 10-digits to a short code, Bright Simons, argues that, ” I am now on the side of those who believe “markets are everything”. The primary reason for failure is the simple absence of a market for the product. Without a market it doesn’t matter if the team is made up of Ford, Jobs and Dell, it will fail. If a market exists, even a mediocre entrepreneur will crack a reasonably workable model of making money. I have advised enough big companies now to conclude finally that “creating new markets” often simply mean “hijacking old markets”.
However, there is another school of thought that believes that start-ups can create a market if there is none. Ekuonana Omane argues that “not only existing markets but the ability to create one. Most people don’t know they need a service or product until you effectively brand and market that service or product.
What do you also think?
By kofi Blog No comments Tags: African Entrepreneurs, Ghana, Innovation, mPedigree, social entrepreneurship, Start-ups, Start-ups in Ghana