Mastercard Foundation, Kosmos Innovation Center to train young entrepreneurs
The Mastercard Foundation and the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) are to train the next generation of young leaders and entrepreneurs in Ghana’s agriculture sector.
Dubbed: Initiative for Youth in Agricultural Transformation (IYAT), the programme will scale KIC’s proven transformational model and initiatives such as the AgriTech Challenge, Business Booster and Business Incubation across the 16 regions of Ghana.
The training will enable young entrepreneurs in the agriculture and agriculture-adjacent sectors to benefit from capacity building, access to finance and business scaling opportunities, creating work opportunities for 163,000 young Ghanaian women and men in the process.
The four-year $16 million programme is aligned with the Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works’ vision and work in Ghana.
It seeks to deepen efforts in the agriculture and agriculture-adjacent sectors, using a value chain market systems development approach, to create access to dignified and fulfilling work opportunities within the sector for young Ghanaians.
The programme also aligns with KIC’s goal of nurturing the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small businesses, to build a healthier and more diverse economy that is fueled by local talent and innovation.
Mr Benjamin Gyan-Kesse, the Executive Director of KIC, said, “This partnership with the Mastercard Foundation is a testament to KIC’s tangible achievements over the past six years, and a nod to the transformation we are bringing to Ghana’s agriculture sector.”
He said as an organization, they were driven by the determination to be the power behind the innovations that would shape Ghana’s agriculture sector.
“We want to back ideas that transform communities and we want to impact the lives of all the individuals associated with our programmes,” he said.
More than 100,000 farmers have been impacted by Agri-Tech and agribusinesses supported by the KIC.
The Center has now evolved into an Independent non-profit organization, able to partner with other organizations and foundations to support its work.
Mr Joe Mensah, the Board Chairman of KIC, Senior Vice-President, said, “When Kosmos Energy launched the KIC back in 2016, they knew it had the potential to make a real difference by bringing fresh talent, thinking, and energy to Ghana’s agriculture sector.”
He said the achievements over the last several years speak for themselves: 600 young leaders trained in business and entrepreneurship; 42 promising small businesses discovered or supported; 360 jobs created and nearly 100,000 farmers supported by our start-ups and small businesses.
Madam Rosy Fynn, the Ghana Country Head at the Mastercard Foundation, said, “this multi-year partnership with the KIC reflects our optimism about Ghana’s future and is aligned to our country’s strategy of investing in agriculture and agriculture-adjacent sectors.”
She said it was to unlock work opportunities for young Ghanaian women and men and to push for system-level changes that positioned Ghana as a continental demonstration of agricultural innovations that are suited to the African context.
Source: GNA