Women’s businesses become more innovative and profitable
Through its Women’s Innovation for Sustainable Enterprise project, Plan International Ghana is supporting rural women to boost their businesses.
Plan International Ghana supports vulnerable rural women through the WISE project.
Plan International Ghana is organising a series of events to mark this year’s International Day of Rural Women.
This year’s celebration on 15 October, which is themed ‘Rural women cultivating good food for all,’ recognises the key role women play in agriculture, economic growth and the wellbeing of their families.
Patricia Gyan-Bassaw, Plan International Ghana’s Project Lead for the Women’s Innovation for Sustainable Enterprise (WISE) project, said, “When it comes to the food system, women play an essential role from production, processing, aggregation and distribution to marketing and preparing the food to make sure households and communities get the nutrition they need.”
Women, however, face a lot of barriers in terms of power distribution, roles and responsibilities, unpaid care, and domestic work.
“We know rural women can do more and better when given the opportunity and support,” said Gyan-Bassaw.
Boost for women-owned businesses
She explained that the WISE project was introduced to build the confidence of rural women and support them to excel and make the most of their talents.
She said Plan International Ghana was also supporting women’s businesses to be more productive, profitable and innovative.
Women in Ghana are blazing trails in small and medium enterprises, leveraging their intelligence, determination, resilience, and innovation to create, grow and sustain their businesses.
We have created a women- friendly hub to provide gender-responsive services, entrepreneurship and business management services and equip rural women with the skills to go into the soya bean value-chain as well as snail and mushroom farming. We are also connecting the women to partners to better market their produce.
“Women in Ghana are blazing trails in small and medium enterprises, leveraging their intelligence, determination, resilience, and innovation to create, grow and sustain their businesses,” said Gyan-Bassaw.
“Plan International Ghana and Plan International Canada stand in solidarity with these women, working with them to strengthen their agency, social networks, financial and business skills to achieve their economic rights and contribute towards achieving gender equality,” she added.
Women become empowered
Lilian Bruce, Gender and Influencing Specialist at Plan International Ghana, said empowering rural women and girls in the areas of decent work and social protection, education, and training, including women in decision-making and leadership were crucial.
Moreover, eliminating gender, sexual and domestic violence and harmful practices would enable women and girls to recover from current global challenges including COVID-19 and position them on the path to sustainable economic growth.
Some of the challenges women in rural areas, especially in the agricultural sector, face are a lack of access to land, loans, appropriate information, education, transportation services, and sexual and reproductive health services, she said.
Bruce said the need for rural women and girls to build resilience could not be over-emphasised as the world faced serious challenges in the areas of climate change with its associated effects on agriculture, food security and nutrition.
Skills and work, Livelihoods, Vocational training
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