Voices from the field: through a combination of technical and financial assistance and convening power, GrEEn promotes solutions that contribute to developing the nascent green sector in the Ashanti and Western regions of Ghana. Afua and Nathaniel, young entrepreneurs from the Ashanti Region are sharing their success stories of resilience and highlight how a combination of financial and non-financial services are key for their journey towards economic independence.

In Ghana, UNCDF is complementing the efforts of the European Green Deal by unlocking the potential for a green and circular economy in Africa. Specifically, under the “Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana – (GrEEn)” project, UNCDF and co-implementing partner SNV support the development of climate-resilient communities and local economies in the Ashanti and Western Regions. The project aims at creating new opportunities in underserved areas, where MSMEs often lack the support and infrastructure needed to thrive. While SNV, through its innovative hubs and coaching centres, offers acceleration and incubation programmes for MSMEs in the green and circular economy, UNCDF assists innovative financial service providers to offer adapted solutions for youth and women-led MSMEs.

Afua: Digital recordkeeping makes trash collection a breeze

Afua A.O. Baidu is a young entrepreneur and co-founder of Trash Smart, a waste management start-up connecting communities to hauliers and hauliers to recycling companies in Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti region. Besides providing waste collection services, Afua promotes good public health by ensuring residents live in a clean and healthy environment. Afua provides clients with education on re-using, repairing, composting, and recycling. Thanks to the GrEEn Project, she has taken an enormous leap to digitize her business operations and formalize her recordkeeping thus helping her scale up her operations.

Trash Smart launched in January 2021, was born out of the need to solve the challenge associated with waste collection or the lack thereof in Kumasi. Many city residents had to deal with waste collection service providers whose pick up schedules were so irregular that wastebins were often left unemptied for weeks, posing health and safety concerns. Afua and her team initially developed an off-line solution to offer regular waste pickup services, promote recycling of waste and allow clients to schedule waste pick up at their convenience.

As her business took off, Afua kept records on paper, but struggled to maintain proper business records as she built her clientele base. As a result, she could not preserve the visibility of her expenses, sales, and business health. Besides keeping records accurate, time and resource constraints also prevented her from building a sound accounting system.

“I struggled to keep up to date on my expenses and sales in a notebook since I couldn’t afford an accounting system. This issue significantly affected the running of Trash Smart as there were several months when I could not accurately determine my profit and losses. I also tried to track my business in excel, but it was not updated regularly. Also, since we’re a very young start-up, I could not afford to hire a professional accountant to manage my books for me.”

Afua’s start-up, Trash Smart, was one of the businesses that joined the incubator implemented by SNV. During this incubation programme, Afua attended a session where she learnt about UNCDF partner OZÉ, the bookkeeping app bringing entrepreneurs into the digital era.

Signing up for OZÉ in July 2021 revolutionized Afua’s business for the better. Since signing, Afua has been religiously using the app to track her expenses and sales and send payment reminder to clients via WhatsApp. After six months, she can confidently say that she is up to date on the progress of her business.

“OZÉ has taken the stress out of recordkeeping and provided an easy way to track money coming in and going out without the need for complicated software. This app has proved immensely helpful and has relieved me of so much headache.“

For many start-ups and small business owners like Afua’s, OZÉ has taken the stress out of recordkeeping. OZÉ also offers its users a variety of business support services that include business tips, webinars, and peer exchange that build the capacities of young entrepreneurs.

“Without the support of the GrEEn project, Trash Smart would not have acquired the necessary skill to digitalize, expand and learn best business practices. With OZÉ, recordkeeping has been made easy and streamlined my operations. I am more confident when dealing with clients since I know my records are up to date now. I also plan to develop a mobile app for my business and include more digital payment options for my clients in the future”

Afua is thinking big and plans to scale up her operations soon, but access to capital remains a challenge, especially for an MSME and a start-up like hers. Fortunately, with OZÉ, Afua can extensively track her operations and generate a comprehensive business record on the health of her business which she can present to financial institutions as proof of her creditworthiness.

The GrEEn Project wants to bring young entrepreneurs into the digital era. Since recordkeeping is a crucial challenge for young entrepreneurs, UNCDF is working with providers to help them in their journey toward economic independence by providing solutions that matter to them.

Thousands of young MSMEs in Ashanti and Western regions are accessing digital innovations that help them in their business, impacting their financial sustainability and capacity to access finance and positively affecting job creation and overall local development. UNCDF supports partners to bring such innovation to areas where access and usage of these services remain a challenge.

To learn more about the partnership with OZE to bring digital bookkeeping and increase access to loans through credit scoring, read the GrEEn case study.

Nathaniel: Agribusiness receives lifeline and unleashes its potential of job creation

At age 32, Nathaniel Kyeremanteng’s love for agribusiness led him to quit his job in a financial institution to join his father’s company Kyeremanteng, Tieku and Sons Limited (KTS), which is into reafforestation, agroforestry and sourcing trading in Teak, Cashew and Honey for export. TKS is a Small-Medium Enterprise (SME) with high capacity of job creation given its role in the value chain as buyer of many small-holder farmers in the area.

Like many SMEs, access to finance was a persistent problem which threatened to affect the smooth operations of the firm. KTS needed working capital to purchase products from farmers in Ghana for onward export to the international market. Many financial institutions in Ghana are apprehensive about lending to SMEs especially in the agricultural sector for the high risks perceived, which limits the potential of these SMEs to access capital to invest and expand their operations. Fortunately for Nathaniel, his story is different. Thanks to the GrEEn project, Nathaniel was able to effortlessly access a loan from Pezesha, the digital crowdlending mobile platform that provides loans to SMEs.

With the loan from Pezesha, Nathaniel was able to inject a much-needed lifeline into his business and enabled him scale up his business. Within a matter of months, Nathaniel has been able to access two loans of USD 1000 and USD 1600 and is in the process of applying for his third loan of USD 2000. The injection of capital into Nathan’s business has had a knock-on effect on his community: he buys even more products directly from over 400 farmers within his district with half of his suppliers being youth.

“The loans I received from Pezesha have been key in expanding my business. I have been able to employ even more staff, buy larger equipment and purchase from a lot more farmers and producers in my community,”

Through his company, Nathaniel also provides training to farmers to construct beehives and training on how to fabricate cashew processing equipment. Nathaniel hopes to create a marketplace to connect buyers to farmers with available produce to purchase from.

Thanks to UNCDF’s GrEEn project, KTS has been able to achieve their objectives of sustainable agriculture and job creation for the youth their community. This proves that when SMEs with sustainable business models get access to finance, they can turn the money around, grow their business and prove to be good borrowers.

GrEEn aims at disrupting financial innovation to allow MSMEs to access capital in underserved areas – where financial options are limited and with high entry barriers: GrEEn creates dynamism in the local financial ecosystems that facilitate the development of MSMEs and enable the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development.