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ATU, MSM Collabo: ATU to Provide Agribusiness Start-up Course to Young Entrepreneurs

Deans and Heads of Departments of Accra Technical University (ATU) have benefited from a five-day training in entrepreneurship. Vin Morar, an Entrepreneurship expert from the Maastricht School of Management (MSM), the Netherlands, took the beneficiary staff through the training module. This first training is part of a total of five training sessions that will prepare ATU staff to develop a commercial agribusiness course with a particular emphasis on female entrepreneurship.

The training is built on the pedestal of Ghana’s buoyant agriculture economy which employs about 65% of Ghana’s formal and informal sector. On the back of this, ATU will provide agribusiness start-up course to young entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on female participants. The Tailor-Made-Training (TMT) is a collaboration between MSM and ATU to design a short course that concentrates 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
The Vice-Chancellor of ATU, Prof. Samuel Nii Odai joined the group on the first day of the training to welcome all the participants and the trainer and also express his excitement and appreciation to the organisers of the training.

The training, which was spread over five days, was 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 improve upon an existing business. Participants were equipped with knowledge through the interactions over 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.

Although the first two days were information-packed, the remaining three days were heavy on hands-on training, creating the needed blend of theory and practicality. With the handles that beneficiary staff were given during day one and two, day three to five were filled with a lot of group work 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 pandemic. ATU ensured that all Covid-19 protocols were duly adhered to, creating a safe environment for both participants and trainer to enjoy in-person interactions. 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.

Background

Since 2019, ATU has been collaborating with MSM on several programmes and projects aimed at knowledge and expertise exchange as well as fostering cordiality.

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