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Social Enterprise in Ghana
By: Franklin Cudjoe
Social enterprise is hard to define rigorously. Generally speaking every legally registered enterprise creates social value. Even tobacco companies and arms manufacturers, amongst the most widely hated businesses, create social value by providing jobs and paying taxes (used for social projects).
It is trivial however to observe that some enterprises create exceptional social value. These companies strongly influence development in their host communities and make sustained investments in the human capital of their employees, customers, suppliers, and other beneficiaries of their production.
Unlike charities and philanthropic organizations, they not only help with the fair distribution of wealth, they also ensure the fair production of wealth. Unlike non-profit producers, the do not alienate investors looking for a return on their hard-earned cash: they attract such investors in droves. The most successful social enterprises don't only fill the pockets of their investors; they also fill their hearts with feel-good factors.
Ghana, like every other developing country, clearly needs more social enterprises. In the first place, because social entrepreneur’s measure risks differently from conventional entrepreneurs they often see opportunities where conventional entrepreneurs see only challenges (typical references: Apostle Kwadwo Sarfo and Grameen Bank).
Furthermore, because they see production in the context of the human and social factors in the community, they often generate better goodwill (read: ''social capital'') and therefore more loyal customers, better-motivated workers, lower regulatory risks (tax incentives and greater access to the authorities, for instance), and access to a broader base of capital. Donor agencies are comfortable dealing with them (witness programs such as GDNet) but so also are the savvier of the bottomline-focussed commercial banks and investment funds.
It is therefore very heartening to observe that Ghanaian youth - on whom the entrepreneurial future of this country depends - are briskly taking up social enterprises. Media underreporting notwithstanding, our young people are gradually gaining a reputation for developing some of the most ambitious and most creative, yet most feasible and practical, social enterprise models in the world. Even more interestingly they are gaining the support of farseeing organizations and advantageously placed individuals in Ghana and the Ghanaian Diaspora.
Last month the Centre for Education & Policy (IMANI) mentored two Ghanaian tertiary students - Kwabena Boakye-Yiadom of Brigham Young University and Emmanuel Lartey of Regent University - to research and develop their business model of connecting fair-trade producers in Ghana with buyers in the Utah college belt.
Bright B. Simons, who works on IMANI's Social Venture Platform, admits he was impressed by the strong vision of the students to nurture their own enterprises.
Ashifi Gogo, a Schweitzer Fellow at Dartmouth College in the USA, also devoted time to guiding two Ghanaian students - Emmanuel Bright Otoo and Bernard Fiifi Brakatu- through the demanding process of streamlining ideas about developing cost-effective vending machines for the Ghanaian snacks market into a workable and invest able business strategy. Ashifi expressed similar sentiments about the drive of the emerging generation of Ghanaian business doers.
Fascinatingly, both groups of students were finalists in this year's Oxford University Youth Business Development Competition, an event organized by the Said Business School of the historic British University to increase youth awareness of social entrepreneurship globally.
The Competition also links participants to mentors at Oxford University to foster global partnerships in social enterprise. Messrs. Abubakar Momodu and Ntongi McFadyen were the Oxford-based mentors who also provided guidance to the Ghanaian teams. The Ghanaians beat several other entrants from 15 countries and more than 38 institutions to the coveted finalist slots.
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IMANI Center for Policy& Education