Successful delivery of Entrepreneurship and Business Start-Up Skills training

From 4 to 8 October, Maastricht School of Management (MSM) provided the first training module on Entrepreneurship and Business Start-Up Skills of a new Tailor-Made-Training in Collaboration with Accra Technical University (ATU).

MSM Entrepreneurship expert Vin Morar traveled to Accra, Ghana to provide the 5-day training module to ATU Deans and Heads of Departments. This first training is part of in total 5 training sessions that will prepare ATU staff to develop a commercial agri-business course with a specific focus on female entrepreneurship.

The importance of agriculture
Around 65% of the Ghanaian working population is engaged in the agricultural sector. This makes the agricultural sector Ghana’s most important economic sector, employing a considerable proportion of the population on a formal and informal basis and accounting for almost half of GDP and export earnings. With the importance of this sector in mind ATU would like to provide an agribusiness start-up course to young entrepreneurs, with a special focus on female participants. This current Tailor-Made-Training (TMT) where MSM collaborates with ATU will therefore train staff to be able t design a short course that focuses on:

• Agri-business value chains, focusing on downstream activities, such as added value products, processing, packaging, import substitution and market linkages.
• Agri-business start-up and development, that focuses on the wider opportunity of commercial farming that attracts young female entrepreneurs
• Agri-business female entrepreneurs, as women represent a large proportion of agricultural workers, but operate mostly at the lower, less profitable end of the value chains.

Entrepreneurship and Business Start-Up skills
ATU Vice Chancelor Samuel Nii Odai joined the group at the first day of the training to personally welcome everyone by providing an opening speech, which was much appreciated by the trainer and participants.

The course that Vin Morar provided was spread over 5 days and aimed at providing the participants with a basic understanding of the small business development process as well as providing the participants with frameworks and guidelines on how to assist entrepreneurs who start a new business or are to develop an existing business. To equip the participants with this knowledge topics such as the business start-up process, basic marketing and financial forecasting for business start-ups as well as key business management needs of a new business were taught.

The first two days were information heavy, however, to really learn to understand entrepreneurship, the participants had to be very hands-on the further 3 days of the training. With the handles that they were given during day one and two, the participants did a lot of group work over the rest of the days to put the newly gained knowledge into practice.

The training was also one of the first training sessions that MSM was able to provide face-to-face over a long period of time due to Covid-19. ATU made sure all Ghanian Covid-19 measures were being adhered and they created a safe environment for the participants and trainer to enjoy in-person teaching. The participants showed a lot of commitment during the training sessions and were enthusiastic and active, Vin Morar shared.

Value Chains
The next module of this TMT will be taught in November 2021 by MSM Value Chain and Partnerships expert, Dr. Jeroen van Wijk.

Orange Knowledge Programme
This Tailor-Made-Training is part of the Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) which is funded by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by Nuffic. For more information click here.

MSM's International Projects and Consultancies Department

This workshop is part of MSM’s International Project and Consultancies Department. The department is an is an expert centre on local economic development in emerging and developing markets.​ We capacitate managers and professionals from government, private sector, NGOs, and post-secondary education in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. We offer consultancy and customized training programs, and we manage complex projects in key sectors, e.g. water, agriculture and health. For more information click here.

Related news
New projects in Burundi, Ghana and Liberia granted to MSM