Ghana - MSMe Business Linkage Program

The Business Linkage Program (BLP) is a three-year training and mentorship initiative designed to assist small and medium enterprises to fast track their businesses from locally good to globally competitive. The project will mainly upgrade Ghanaian SMEs skills, governance and operations, enabling them to be effectively integrated into the value chains of multinational corporations as suppliers, and be eligible for financing from partnering banks such as UT Bank Ghana and Ecobank. It is expected that this program will increase economic activity and development of trade through increased demand for locally produced goods and services, translating into additional income and employment generation. It includes the five following components: (i) Developing the African Partner Pool (APP): this will be Ghana’s first online directory of independently validated local SMEs across major sectors ; (ii) Core Competency Training: Consisting of entrepreneurship training and SME business planning ; (iii) Business Diagnostics: a comprehensive diagnostic review will be conducted for each participating SME resulting in the development of an appropriate implementation plan for building improved SME businesses ; (iv) Management Skills Development: this will involve training and coaching of SMEs to develop identified gaps in management skills of participating SMEs ; (v) Building SME Production Capabilities: participating SMEs will be assisted to build their production capabilities to meet quality requirements of large companies.