Reach for Change Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, has held the maiden national edition of Partnering for Change in Accra.
The day’s event brought together social inventors, business and philanthropic leaders, policy makers, researchers and academia to discuss actions and innovations needed to create a sustainable world.
The over 70 participants were drawn from Ghana, Sweden, Senegal, Morocco and Nigeria.
Reach for Change is a global non-profit organisation unleashing the power of local social entrepreneurs through capacity and ecosystem development programs, to reduce poverty, inequality, and climate change affecting children and youth.
Reach for Change has since its establishment supported over 2,000 Change Leaders in 18 countries, including Ghana, who have reached 4.3 million children and youth.
Mr Solomon Twum, the Country Manager, Reach for Change Ghana, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the Partnering for Change was an initiative that brought together collaborators and partners within the entrepreneurship ecosystem to enable them to create more social impact.
“We are in the business of supporting entrepreneurs and the reason we do is because we want to reduce poverty, we want to reduce inequality, and we also want to create jobs for the youth. Now, this is something that we cannot do all by ourselves, over a 10-year period, we supported over 300 entrepreneurs, who have also gone to impact over 800,000 children, women, and youth,” he said.
“Now if one organisation can do this with few partners, you can imagine what we can achieve if a lot more partners come on board. So, my expectation at the end of the day is to have a situation where lot more of these development partners coming on board with extra funding for us to support the youth to create jobs for them while they also create employment for others.”
He noted that Partnering for Change was not just an event, but a forum where talk could be turned into action, and new alliances could be built, so that they could all work for a more just and sustainable country.
Madam Sofia Breitholtz, Global Chief Executive Officer, Reach for Change, told the GNA that the Mission of Reach for Change was to use entrepreneurship as a powerful tool to be able to change society for the better.
She said entrepreneurs and many grass root heroes across Ghana and across many different countries had innovative solutions to the problems that the world was facing be it climate change or inequalities.
She said through the efforts of Reach for Change, they were getting more children and youth to go to school.
She said they believed that it was the youth that could help Ghana attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Chief Executive Officer, Ghana Entreprises Agency, in a speech read on her behalf, reiterated the key role Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) played in every economy.
“In Ghana especially, only a handful of businesses are classified as large. The rest are all MSMs. This signifies their importance in job creation and contribution to gross domestic product (GDP),” she stated.
“So, to lay the foundation for sustainable economic growth for Ghana, we needed to strengthen and increase the number of enterprises that will contribute towards our GDP and employment.”
A participant at the conference, Mr Kwesi Fiaka of the Nneka Youth Foundation, speaking to the GNA, underpinned the need for civil society organisations operating in the same ecosystem to partner each other for them to be able to achieve their objectives.
