The government of Ghana from March 2022 will launch a job creation project targeted at supporting the youth start and expand small scale businesses.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, presenting the 2022 budget to parliament revealed the YouStart initiative, which seeks to create 1 million jobs, has a seed capital of GHS1 billion.
According to Ken Ofori-Atta, the YouStart initiative will be a vehicle for supporting young entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, training, technical skills, and mentoring to enable them to start and grow their own businesses.
“The YouStart initiative which proposes to use GH¢1 billion each year to catalyze an ecosystem to create 1 million jobs in partnership with the Finance Institutions and Development Partners, raise another 2 Billion Cedis,” he said.
The Minister also revealed that local banks in the country have agreed to increase their SME portfolio up to GHC5 billion over the next 3 years.
“This, Mr. Speaker, results in an unprecedented historic 10 billion Cedis commitment to the private sector and YouStart over the next 3 years,” he added.
The YouStart initiative will be implemented by the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), and partner financial institutions.
The initiative will require interested persons to register online, while the NEIP engages Faith-Based Organisations as partners for the delivery of essential artisanal skills, business competitions, and feasibility studies and introduction to financing institutions with a commitment of up to 10% of GOG contribution to the program.
“Mr. Speaker, YouStart will provide our youth with
i. Training: Skills Development, Entrepreneurial Support, and Business Advisory services;
ii. Funding: Access to Competitive Credit and Starter Packs;
iii. Enterprise Promotion: Mentoring and Access to Markets, including Portals to facilitate “digital linkages” between youth-led enterprises and other businesses and relevant Government agencies.
Young people under the program will benefit from District Level Loans under 10,000 GHC after 2-3 months of training and Soft loans of up to GH¢50,000 to help start-ups (in particular by young graduates from and school-leavers) and small businesses to expand.
