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05.10.2015 Business & Finance

Ghanaian Social Entrepreneur Attends World Bank And IMF Meetings In Peru

By Yaw Adu-Gyamfi
Ghanaian Social Entrepreneur Attends World Bank And IMF Meetings In Peru
05.10.2015 LISTEN

Ghana’s first Atlas Corps Fellow and Co-founder of the Centre for Social Innovations, Yaw Adu-Gyamfi has been invited by the International Monetary Fund-IMF to attend this year’s annual meetings of the fund and the World Bank Group in Lima, Peru, during October 5-11, 2015.

The Annual Meetings will bring together IMF and World Bank staff, government officials, and representatives from civil society organizations (CSOs), think tanks, the private sector, academia, donor agencies, and international press to discuss global economic and development issues.

Yaw has been invited to participate in the Meetings as part of the IMF-sponsored Youth Fellowship Program, which begins on October 5 to October 10. The Fellowship Program offers the opportunity to interact with IMF and World Bank staff, as well as with CSOs, academic, think tank representatives, and others.

He was selected based on the relevance of his work in Ghana in the areas of sustainable development, skills development, innovation and entrepreneurship and the fund’s interest to engage with the Centre for Social Innovations-CSI, headquartered in Kumasi, Ghana’s second biggest city.

In 2014, Yaw co-founded the Centre for Social Innovations (CSI), making available his extensive experience working directly with communities and young people, focusing on skills development, innovation and entrepreneurship to empower change-makers in Ghana making use of design thinking and asset based community development approaches.

Currently, Yaw has been leading a team from CSI to develop innovative approaches to localizing the sustainable development goals recently launched by world leaders at the United Nations. He also serves as Special Assistant to the National Best Farmer in Ghana working with a team of consultants and agribusiness experts to raise the needed investment to support value chain development from production, processing through to marketing.

As an expert in Cluster development, Yaw has successfully supervised the following programs:

  • Muskoka Initiative Partnership- sponsored by Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development(DFATD)to improve maternal and child health for over 9000 women and their new-born in Middle and Northern Ghana(2013-2014)
  • Business Advocacy- sponsored by DANIDA/USAID/DfID) to provide Information Technology and Business Development services to Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organization (SMIDO)- an enclave of over 200,000 artisans in Kumasi(2007-2010).

At the high level Meetings in Lima, Peru, Yaw’s focus will be on how the IMF and World Bank can work with the Ghanaian government to invest in young people to look at new areas of growth in innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable development during and after Ghana’s three year arrangement under the extended credit facility with the Britton Woods Institutions.

An alumnus of Catholic University College of Ghana, University of Cape Coast and Institute for Technology and Social Change, Washington DC, Yaw describes this opportunity as a major landmark in his desire to make an impact in International Development.

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