YouStart Ghana Initiative Support for Young Entrepreneurs Launched

By | October 21, 2021
May be an image of text that says 'Government's YouSturt policy The YouStart initiative will support young entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, training, technical skills and mentoringto enable them to develop commercially viable businesses. In partnership with the Finance Institutions and Development Partners, YouStarti designed to instill proper commercial orientation in the beneficiaries @MoF_Ghana @moigovgh #YouStart @GhanaPresidency I @NAkufoAddo'

The Ministry of Finance is set to support businesses of Ghanaian youths through its YouBanC initiative to ensure that young people are given the requisite financial and technical assistance from an early stage to develop and grow.

This forms part of a tailored approach by the ministry to solve access to finance concerns which hinder young people from venturing into entrepreneurship, likewise creating jobs for them under the Ghana-CARES Obaatanpa Programme.

“Through this Initiative, Young Applicants between the ages of 18-35 will be granted financial and technical support to start or grow their Business Ideas,” said Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

The beneficiaries will be given ample time to pay back the money as their businesses grow.

The initiative will further give student-entrepreneurs who benefit from the programme a chance to serve their national service with their own company after graduating – a move that is meant to encourage students to start something while in school.

YouBanC will simultaneously promote growth in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and support new ventures.

The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, who disclosed this last Friday, said the intervention, which would be launched next month, was a significant milestone in the race to create one million jobs under the Ghana CARES (Obaatan Pa) programme.

Interacting with the youth at the Springboard, Ghana CARES Youth

Dialogue programme at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Mr Ofori-Atta said the YouBanC would be launched after the presentation of the 2022 Budget.

The budget will be presented to Parliament next month.

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Consequently, the 2022 Budget would continue to strengthen institutions such as the Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme (NEIP) and the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) to create entrepreneurship opportunities for the youth, the Finance Minister said.

How to access

“Applications for financial support, starter packs and training/mentoring schemes will be made through a centralised online portal and at dedicated GEA & NEIP business advisory centres and university campuses,” Mr Ofori-Atta noted.

He said key stakeholders had been consulted to inform the design of the scheme.

“The consultations have also been scaled up to technical experts to ensure that the project is well suited to identify and support viable enterprises,” he said.

“In the end, our objective as a government is to ensure that we can, through our interventions, tackle the unsettling feeling of uncertainty that exists across our young people,” he added.

Mr Ofori-Atta stressed that the government was rooted in its commitment to create one million jobs by leveraging the existing financial architecture and the government’s enterprise ecosystem to create opportunities for the youth.

He, therefore, charged the youth to support the government’s efforts at building an entrepreneurial state that was capable of providing the necessary jobs required in the country.

The Finance Minister urged the youth to work at establishing their own businesses to employ others, instead of waiting to be employed by the government after school.

Citing how he left a very well paid job in New York, United States of America (USA), to start his own business back in Ghana, he told the youth to strive to do great things, as there was no limit to what they could do.

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Mr Ofori-Atta and his friends set up Databank, which later invested in other companies, such as the Enterprise Insurance Group and other ancillary businesses, that now form a large conglomerate.

He assured the youth that the government was willing and ready to support them to achieve their dreams.