Group picture of Young Green Entrepreneurs, SYND team & Facilitators
Report by: Ishmael Barfi
According to the Project Lead for Young Green Entrepreneurs, Mr. Maxwell Beganim, young people need to be very innovative as well as focus more on entrepreneurship to drive the economic growth of the country.
To him, this will harness the skills, knowledge and boost the living condition of young people and their families as well the economy of the country.
And this can be materialized when young entrepreneurs have a proper understanding of how to run a green business to make profits and contribute to the fight against climate change.
Mr. Beganim made this call during a capacity-building workshop organized by the Strategic Youth Network For Development ( SYND) for Young Green Entrepreneurs on Friday, 21st April 2023 in Accra under the theme: “Building a Resilient and Adaptable Green Business in line with SDG7, SE4ALL, REMP, and Ghana’s NDCs”.
Project lead, Maxwell Beganim interacting with young green entrepreneurs
According to him, young entrepreneurs must have a proper understanding of how to run a green business explaining that, “If you look at how traditional business is done and then green business, the fundamentals are the same, however, other elements need to be added to the green entrepreneurship business”.
It is against this backdrop that, SYND he said decided to provide a platform for facilitators and specialists in the area of business consulting in green space to interact with young green entrepreneurs.
And also to ensure their business proposals are aligned government interventions in terms of climate change hence emissions”.
The capacity building is also to prepare these young entrepreneurs to be investor ready.
“If we say investor ready, most of these capacity building or training sessions focus on just giving them information and they are done but we want to look beyond that.
This capacity building the Project Lead emphasized would give them the necessary equipment and documentation to be investor ready.
Speaking to the uniqueness of the capacity-building workshop, he indicated that, it is aimed at positioning these young green business entrepreneurs to be able to get the needed support in terms of funds because when an investor comes in, it’s not about just the content that you have but then the ability to showcase the prospective of growing an sustaining the business to contribute to the socio-economic growth of the country.
Group picture of Young Green Entrepreneurs, SYND team & Facilitators
This is because investors he acknowledged do come in expecting to see certain indicators in place, “so we are making sure that all our green entrepreneurs have these indicators so that when an investor is coming in it becomes easier for them to put money into the business because at the end of the day, every investor that comes is looking at return on investment.
And this he claimed makes the young green entrepreneurs program different from others.
However, Mr. Maxwell Beganim noted that lack of collaboration is most often missing in most green businesses which he noted is not healthy for the development and growth of these businesses.
“Most of these young people are seen working in silos, but we believe it is time that they come together to form like a conglomerate but then there should be a youth chamber that would bring Young Green Entrepreneurs together”.
This, he believed would aid them to focus on how they want to contribute to the economy regarding to climate change or to drive the economic growth of the country.
“This collaboration is very important in terms of green businesses and their ability to transform their ideas into business. This can be done through this network and partnership and at events like this, you are going to get the connection”.
Also, he revealed that, they are axing young people who are in green businesses to look for such opportunities to join cohorts to be able to be identified and put them under one umbrella which would expose them to investors as well as aid them to write grant funding opportunities, etc.
Mr Prince Kelly Anyomitse, Project Manager for the Challengers Group
On his part, Mr Prince Kelly Anyomitse, Project Manager for the Challengers Group advised young people to pay attention to the opportunity and the value Green Businesses gives which other SMEs do not give.
Adding, “in that way, they will pay attention not only to profits but also more importantly positive impact and given the space that we operate in, we can generate employment by also ensuring that we positively affect, influence the environment which will be very good win, win for all of us”.
Meanwhile, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics shows that, the world is in a shift due to emissions as a result of the numerous economic activities.
In as much as Ghana wants to be economical, there is the need to conduct economic activities in a sustainable way.
To the Agency, it is considering how businesses can be done to reduce the production of emission into the atmosphere.
And it is due to this reason, they recognize green businesses.
According to the Agency, Ghana as a country has signed numerous international policies which give the country the platform to engage in some of these green businesses.
Some of these policies include the Paris Agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which gives Ghana the bigger platform to do most of these green businesses.
And at the local level, the Renewable Energy Master Plan is under the Renewable Energy Act as well as the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The general perspective is looking at how Ghana can do it in a way that wouldn’t cause mass emissions or reduce emissions in the atmosphere.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
