The Business Advisory Service Providers of Ghana (BASPAG) has partnered with African Women in Agribusiness (AWIA) to build capacity for its members with the purpose of advancing the Agribusiness Sector through Business Advisory Services focusing on Women-led Micro, Small, Medium including Large Enterprises (MSMLEs).

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which was signed by Lucy Akua Kyerede Quainoo, Vice President of BASPAG, and Mabel Quarshie, President of AWIA cuts across Agri-finance as well as all functional areas of operations of Women-led MSMLEs.

Madam Lucy Akua Kyerede Quainoo, the Vice President of BASPAG explained that as an advisory body, the partnership would build the capacity of the women in the MSMLEs ecosystem particularly those in the agriculture sector.

The MOU seeks to harness the individual strengths of these partners and form synergies in the spirit of cooperation to empower the members of AWIA. The idea is to make collaborative decisions and policies based on shared realities towards the execution of specific projects while maintaining separate individual core operations.

“With the dawn of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the Director-General, World Trade Organization, and the advent of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) African women’s dexterity, knowledge, passion, and resilience in entrepreneurship and agribusiness is being featured towards poverty alleviation and wealth creation through international trade and development, therefore is a need for supporting system to build their capacity,” she reiterated.

The purpose of the partnership is to effectively utilize the competitive advantage that emanates from the collaboration for the benefit of their respective association members. AWIA, according to the agreement will organize their members and facilitate their ability to access Business Advisory Services from BASPAG.

Madam Mabel Quarshie, the President of AWIA mentioned that the partnership is a good avenue for the members in AWIA to scale-up their businesses as the partnership seeks to build their capacities.

The president said the partnership would give them leverage where the members would be skilled in record keeping, marketing, and business ethics which would enhance accessing loans from the financial institutions.

“This is the period where AWIA needs to sharpens its skills, this partnership would avail us with interventions and broaden our scope," she added.

BASPAG is a network of professionals providing advisory services to micro, small, medium, and large enterprises in Ghana. The network was born out of USAID’s Financing Ghana Agriculture Project (FinGAP). Among other activities, the project offered technical and financial assistance through Business Advisory Service (BAS) providers that worked with enterprises in preparing and packaging financing proposals for viable agribusiness opportunities.

AWIA is a women-led Agribusiness and Value Chain that play roles in agriculture and agribusiness in Ghana with the mission of working to address the challenges women face in the sector. The group aims to bring all women in Agribusiness under one umbrella with the aim of empowering them for business growth and development. Their vision is thus to capacitate women’s access to the agri-ecosystem, driving socio-economic impact through disruptive virtual and physical communities.