The KIC Business Booster program has organized a series of town hall meetings with a total of 26 businesses in Ashanti, Central, Greater Accra, Northern and Upper West regions, as part of their investor readiness coaching and capacity building. The Business Booster program is a growth and acceleration program targeted at Ghanaian-owned Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Farmer Based Organization, to scale and become investor ready.
Since its inception the KIC Business booster program has supported Agri-MSMEs in the agricultural and agri-adjacent sectors. The Business Booster program seeks to strengthen and spur the growth of existing MSMEs in agriculture and agriculture adjacent sectors in Ghana that have demonstrated potential and are ready to scale.
The booster program support to the Agri-MSMEs includes training and capacity building, business development support as well as mentoring and coaching. The coaching, mentoring and business development support leads to investor preparedness which allows the Agri-MSMEs to effectively engage with investors.
Through these approaches, the KIC Business Booster program has been able to support businesses to impact on the livelihoods and business operations of farmers and farmer-based organizations. It is interesting to note that the support has resulted in improved market access and productivity of the smallholder farmers the businesses work with. As part of the town hall meetings, the KIC Executive Director and other staff of KIC, visited and interacted with some farmers in communities where these MSMEs operate.
Speaking about the impact of the programme, Benjamin Gyan-Kesse, the Executive Director for KIC emphasized KIC’s commitment to supporting the growth of agribusinesses to contribute to the agricultural value chain as significant actors.
The Agri-MSMEs over the period have supported farmers with micro credits, through which the businesses have been able to increase the number of beneficiaries that benefit from these services. Farmers now have access to quality production inputs in the form of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers. Some Agri-MSMEs have also successfully provided market access to commodity produce at competitive prices. Some smallholder farmer benefitted from training on good agronomic practices, the training has resulted in an improvement in productivity at the farm level. Also there has been an improvement in product quality that meets buyer specification for raw materials sourcing from these smallholder farmers.
Through KIC support to the Agri-MSMEs, they have been able to create additional jobs in the communities they operate in. On the average, each KIC booster business has created two additional job opportunities over a five-month period since joining the program and this is expected to grow.
Since the inception of the Business Booster program in 2016, a total of 127 MSMEs have received capacity building from KIC, out of which 72 are women-led businesses.
About Mastercard Foundation and KIC Partnership
Mastercard Foundation and KIC announced the launch of a multi-year partnership to train the next generation of young leaders and entrepreneurs in Ghana’s agriculture sector in May 2022. Other key aspects of the partnership include the AgriTech Challenge Classic, AgriTech Challenge Pro, the KIC Incubation, Business Booster, and the Blue Skies Foundation School Farm Competition.