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17.05.2016 Business & Finance

BUSAC Fund To Organize Forum For Private Sector

By Ghanaian Chronicle
BUSAC Fund To Organize Forum For Private Sector
17.05.2016 LISTEN

The Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund would on Thursday, May 19, organise a high level forum as part of efforts to enhance the business advocacy capacity of the private sector. The forum would reflect on the achievements of the fund, drawing on lessons learnt and sharing the impact on the private sector.

A statement issued by the BUSAC Fund and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday said the forum sought to trigger discussions on how public-private dialogue could enhance Ghana's economic growth.

Invited guests for the occasion are Tove Degnbol, the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, William Hanna, the European Union Ambassador to Ghana, Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah, the Minister of Trade and Industry, and Mr. Rashid Pelpuo, the Minister of State -Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnership. Also in attendance would be representatives of development partners, government officials, private sector operators and other stakeholders.

The statement said the private sector was widely recognised as key to national development and growth thus contributing to poverty reduction. It said despite being an integral part of the Ghanaian economy, the private sector was confronted with challenges in the business environment that hampered its operations and growth.

Notable among the challenges are the lack of affordable long-term capital, inefficient technology, unfavourable regulatory framework, difficulty in accessing arable lands and lack of managerial and entrepreneurial skills. DANIDA, with the support from USAID and the EU, set up the BUSAC Fund to enhance the advocacy capacity of the private sector to enable it to influence the review and implementation of regulatory instruments to improve the business environment for its operators, the statement said.

It said throughout a decade of operations in Ghana, the BUSAC Fund supported private sector organizations (PSOs) to advocate the removal of the operational challenges in the business environment to enhance their productivity and growth. The Fund also facilitated the creation of a platform for private-public sector policy dialogue aimed at addressing the myriad of challenges in the business environment that hampered private sector growth and development.

Over the last decade, the BUSAC Fund provided over 780 grants valued at over 40 million dollars to various PSOs across the 10 regions of Ghana. Key highlights of the Fund's operations include the provision of 271 grants to support private sector business advocacy initiatives within the agricultural sector alone.

The statement said the support was essentially focused on improving the livelihood of farmers, food security, land use rights and gender-based constraints. “Among these PSOs worth mentioning are the Association of Farmers with Disabilities who successfully advocated access to quality vegetable seeds and the rehabilitation of their broken irrigation canals and the Ghana Federation of the Disabled who advocated the enforcement of the Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715),” it said.

The BUSAC Fund's achievements include significantly helping the private sector to successfully advocate policy changes, regulatory simplifications or regulatory enforcement that enhances the business environment for the Ghanaian private sector. The Fund also contributed to facilitating fruitful dialogue between the public and private sectors aimed at articulating private sector needs and concerns while enhancing the capacity of PSOs to undertake business advocacy independently as well as improving the structure of numerous business associations.

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