The Ghana Economic Transformation Project has four components, and NEIP’s programmes fall under component 3 of the project.
Speaking at a press launch of the NEIP Hub Acceleration Grant Programme under Ghana Economic Transformation Project, the CEO of NEIP, Kofi Ofosu Nkansah said the component 3 support entrepreneurship and SME growth in non-resource-based sectors and it is aimed at addressing the limited development of the SME and entrepreneurship support ecosystem, including early-stage financing to promote and strengthening a growth model that is condusive to economic transformation, to achieve high rates of investment and productivity growth across the economy, especially in non-resource-based sectors.
He enumerated that the hubs grant sub-component under component 3, is a grant programme to support the development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem by building the capacities of entrepreneurship hubs to bring the quality of their services up to international standards. The hubs will be supported to run programmes, that would benefit firms and start-ups within their communities. There will also be mapping and benchmarking of hubs as part of their component 3 programmes.
According to him, the grant programme, will competitively select a number of hubs which will be provided technical assistance and capacity building to address gaps identified during the benchmarking exercise. Selected hubs will receive grants up to $ 200,000 to support their operations, upgrade their offices and equipment, and run the acceleration programme.
Mr Ofosu Nkansah was optimistic that the Ghanaian start-up landscape has seen tremendous growth in the number of entrepreneurship and innovation hubs over the last decade. They now have hubs in several parts of the country with each region having more than one hubs. And NEIP has consistently collaborated with these hubs over the last 6years.
Despite this positive growth in the ecosystem, the hubs that are nurturing of their emerging start-ups have some issues and therefore needs support to be able to grow more businesses, hence the implementation of this HAGP by the government with the support of the world bank.
The criteria for applicants hubs must be legally registered in Ghana, also a ownership must be 100% Ghanaian, must have operated as an enterprise support organization in Ghana for at least three years and should have core expectise in entrepreneurship support and business acceleration.
He said the closing date for applications will be Friday 10th March, 2023.
