Ghana to up-skill women entrepreneurs with IE Africa Centre

Hot off the heels of its Women Entrepreneurs Rise platform launch, the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) has now also partnered with an European academic hub. Together with the IE Africa Centre, it will accelerate leadership training for women entrepreneurs in the West African country.

The IE Africa Centre predominantly focuses on African studies. It is part of the Madrid- and Segovia-based IE University specialising in leadership and development training programmes.

Speaking on the partnership, GEA chief executive Kosi Yankey-Ayeh said “leadership and development are crucial to drive entrepreneurship, so we need to partner with leading global universities such as IE University for institutional growth and development.”

Earlier, the IE Africa Centre provided leadership training to GEA executive members to equip them with skills that would allow the organisation to realise its full potential. This partnership is now being extended to include professional development for women entrepreneurs.

“Ghana is a key country for the IE Africa Centre because of their high numbers of woman owned businesses, exceptional political leadership and shared values,” explained centre director Begoña Gomez Fernandez.

Sparking systems change

IE Africa Centre chairperson Felicia Appenteng added: “The centre’s mission is to shine a light on African solutions to global challenges, as such we’re extremely proud to partner with the Ghana Enterprises Agency, to identify, nurture and support African entrepreneurs as they spark systems change.”

Empowering women is one of the most crucial concerns of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. To help address the challenges women face and to help build a resilient economy, GEA provides business development, advisory and financial support services to entrepreneurs in the MSME sector.

It has put in a place interventions that specifically target the economic empowerment of women in Ghana. This is above and beyond the Women Entrepreneurs Rise platform created to bring successful women leaders and enablers together for networking, skills development, and knowledge sharing.

IE Africa Centre  said it adopts a systems change approach to entrepreneurship and leadership training, encouraging executives, teams and leaders to address policies, mindsets, or power dynamics that underlie societal issues at stake.

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