Daniel Amponsah - "This Could Go a Long Way"

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Daniel Amponsah - "This Could Go a Long Way"

Advisor advocates new policies to help rural businesses scale up

A business advisor with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), in Ghana, has suggested governments can play a key role in the scaling up of rural businesses.

Daniel Amponsah made the claim after attending Salzburg Global’s session on ‘Africa’s Growth Engine: Partnerships for Rural Enterprise and Impact at Scale’.

The session, co-organized with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, brought together a range of key actors to identify opportunities to scale successful interventions across Africa.

In an email exchange, Amponsah said: “The government through its monetary and fiscal policies could alter policies that inhibit production and productivity of farming.

“This could go a long way to create the necessary environment for rural business to scale up.”

The NBSSI is the apex government body for the promotion and development of the micro and small enterprises (MSE) sector in Ghana.

Amponsah’s responsibilities include translating the body’s vision, which is to develop and promote micro and small scale enterprises.

“We seek to do this by contributing to the creation of an enabling environment for small scale enterprise development, [facilitating] access to credit for small enterprise, [and providing] non-financial support for sustainable small scale enterprise development.

“The mandate to transform entrepreneurship has been the core function of my organization since 1985.”

The NBSSI is currently implementing a project with the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF) to develop the capacity of rural enterprise to access export markets.

Amponsah has been associated with rural enterprise activities for the past 9 years. He believes Africa’s prosperity has the potential to affect many generations.

“The development and sustainability of rural enterprises has the potential to improve incomes, lift the majority of our rural people from poverty and enhance welfare.”

During the three-day session, Amponsah and his fellow participants discussed some of the main barriers facing rural enterprise in their regions. For Amponsah, this included access to cheaper credit facilities, post-harvest management, inadequate storage, poor road networks, and uncoordinated agricultural policies.

The action steps Amponsah’s group came up with centered on deepening youth capacity building as a scale up in enterprise. This could be done through strengthening apprenticeship training, linking coaching and mentorship to agri-business and documenting role models.

“The whole discussion was done in a more serene and camaraderie environment. As such, it was a very insightful, thought-provoking collaborative, experiential learning methodology and very educative.”

Amponsah said his three biggest takeaways from the session included networking, a new up-scaling framework and the cross fertilization of ideas from other countries and cultures.

“There are few words capable of encapsulating the measures of the masterful experience of Salzburg, except to say a real paradise on earth, a replica of the Garden of Eden.

“The ambience and serene atmosphere interspersed with its historical backdrop makes it a place to savour, an abode fit for the gods.”