PABD awards 30 traders with certificates, supports with ₵1,000 seed capital to boost business

A fastest privately owned company in Ghana, Pan African Business Developers (PABD) has provided training for 30 traders and awarded them with certificates through its Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) Development and Innovation Programme (DIP) at Kwabenya market in the Greater Accra region.

In addition to the above, they supported the traders with a seed capital of ₵1,000.

The aim of the training is to empower growth-oriented Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and help manage their business effectively in order to remain in business, be profitable, create jobs, and accelerate economic growth.

The focus areas of the DIP programme includes business innovation, financial management, marketing, customer relationship management and business registration and regulatory requirements. Traders at the end of the training were equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills  on budgeting, book keeping, problem-solving techniques among others, through interactive and participatory approaches.

Speaking to the media, the Managing Partner – Pan-African Business Developers, Kirk Adaboh Agyekum in his remarks mentioned that SMEs’ contribution to the economy is very important, therefore, must be given the necessary support needed to thrive. He highlighted on the fact that a lot of businesses have still not recovered from the shock of COVID-19 as a result of poor management.

“SMES are the backbone of any economy, and they make significant contributions to economic growth because they help create jobs, increase household incomes, and contribute to poverty reduction. Not only do small businesses provide more jobs, but they also bring careers and opportunities. Successful small businesses put money back into their local community through paychecks and taxes, which can support the creation of new small businesses and improve local public services.” He said

“The reason why the training was done was to educate you on how to make your business grow and to make you more equipped with more managerial skills and technical know-how on how to run a smooth-operation with your business. During the covid-19 pandemic, it took a lot of time for most of you to get back on your feet. Many people did not recover at all and this was caused by the lack of certain business management skills. It is therefore up to us to take everything we learnt during the training very seriously so we can improve on ourselves and become resilient,” he added.

Mr. Agyekum emphasized that PABD will continue to train more SMEs, especially youth and women-led businesses to help achieve its target of providing business management training and financial support for over 100,000 SMEs across sectors that deliver significant and sustained impact, with being funded by PABD.

He said the next point for training will be for the traders at the Dome market. PABD focuses in areas of economic development, agriculture and food security, and environmental sustainability.

Amidst joy and happiness, the traders who underwent the training shared their experience. According to them, they have been equipped with the necessary things and skills they lacked in doing business. To that effect, they promise to go according to the set rules and guidelines given to them by their trainers in order to help grow and expand their business.