Are Ghanaians Entrepreneurial?

Four business minded people and two students of law were having dinner at the Accra Imperial Peking Chinese Restaurant when this topic of discussion came up. The claim was made that Ghanaians were not entrepreneurial which is to say, we are risk averse, are unwilling/unable to get others to take risks to our benefit and/or are unwilling to move out of our comfort zones. An example was offered of the cobbler who after twenty something years still spoke of his dream of expanding into a shop but remained sat at his small table by the roadside, the only change being his graying hair.

I’m sure you know of many other instances of people setting up one room shops and grinding it out the rest of their lives or of those satisfied with being the wealthiest people in a village and no more. And then there are our students who study and pray that one day they might get a chair and table in a civil service office or a bank and obtain security for their families.

I vehemently argued that we were indeed entrepreneurial. The problem was the lack of credit from banks, the killer interest rates on loans, a society which is quick to punish failure, a government unwilling to foster the right environment for entrepreneurship and business, and a culture of filial duty which forces the individual to settle in the most secure jobs like medicine, law, engineering and the like—to wit, everything outside of the individual.

When saner minds prevail, however, true as these arguments may be, and there are current indications that some of them are increasingly false (With some mild improvement over the past years, it now takes on average seven procedures, twelve days and a cost of 20% income per capita to start a business. Our ease of doing business and starting a business still lag those of many countries with ranks of 67 and 99 however – World Bank), the Cedi stops with us. The many small businesses indeed show we are willing to take risks but the few Ghanaian owned large business and the burgeoning ranks of the unemployed college grads suggest we are unwilling to dream big or act on big dreams.

This is where we need to change and grudgingly I admit the truth of my friends’ arguments. Only recently have we begun to build an entrepreneurial culture/an enabling environment with numerous award schemes for entrepreneurs. These do not go far enough. I dream of the day when it is okay to start a business and lose money, where past business failures do not mean lack of access to future credit and are not negatives on resumes/CVs. We must teach entrepreneurship in our institutions as a viable career option. Malaysia is already reinventing itself with efforts to incorporate it into its formal curriculum. We can learn something there.

As usual, our generation is setting the pace. From IT/Software companies to education-related enterprises, there are people out there holding true to the Harvard Business Schools’ The Entrepreneurial Manager course definition of entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled”. So get out there, start a business, innovate in another person’s business, hedge your risks if you must, do it after work if you must, use someone else’s money if you must, but for Ghana’s sake, do something.

An interesting research on entrepreneurship in Ghana can be found here.

Prime

*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************

Screenathon: REACH Ghana and Health Redistribution

Over the past year, I was involved in the founding and running of an organization, REACH Ghana, committed to improving the health-care system in Ghana and promoting equal access to quality health-care by all communities in the country. We work in partnership with stakeholders at improving health-care through sustainable projects while building local community capacity for long-term health maintenance. We need your help.

We are capping the year off with a Fundraising Screenathon at Glefe, Ghana, designed to bring together hundreds of volunteers for an extraordinary day of service and provision of health-care and health education services for this under-served community.

We are raising funds from individuals and corporate sponsors alike to spread the holiday cheer to these people and ask that you visit our webpage to donate. For less than $10, you could offer a family health insurance coverage for a year. For more on Glefe, the REACH Ghana Annual Screenathons and on REACH Ghana’s activities over the past year, please read on.

Glefe is a trading village which a University of Ghana Medical School study found has poor sanitation and high rates of malaria, gastrointestinal illnesses and other febrile diseases especially in the age-group 1-4yrs.

The Screenathon will thus provide essential education on disease prevention while testing for these and chronic problems like high blood pressure and diabetes. We will provide basic care at the event and transfer complex cases to the local health authorities ensuring care continuity. Depending on funding, we will register a limited number of inhabitants in the National Health Insurance Scheme.

REACH Ghana was founded by a group of young Ghanaians and is proudly advised by luminaries like Dr. Isabella Sagoe-Moses, National Child Health Coordinator at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Paul Farmer, Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Andrew Arkutu, former Director of Country Support Team for Southern Africa of the United Nations Population Fund.

REACH Ghana has accomplished a lot in a short time viz a partnership with Kua, a US-based design brand committing a percentage of profits to REACH programs, and a Health Education Enhancement Initiative which has enabled shipment of medical education books from the US to Ghana.

In addition, REACH is in advanced stages of planning for an HIV/AIDS Intervention Project which will provide comprehensive HIV education, prevention and treatment services for young people on major university campuses and surrounding communities in Ghana. This effort meets an area of special need as it targets people between the ages of 18 and 35 who contribute almost 50% of new HIV infections in Ghana. As a first step, REACH Ghana placed HIV/AIDS awareness messages through innovative advertising on taxis in Accra earlier this year.

Finally, the Ghana based membership has been particularly active in our activities and are spearheading a project to address the high rates of HIV at Agomanya in the eastern region of Ghana through empowering women by facilitating access to foreign markets of the local bead-making community.

I encourage you to become a member of REACH Ghana by signing up here, and get involved in making a difference in Ghana.

Prime

*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************