The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has organised a business management workshop for selected women and traders to help them to adopt best practices of handling their businesses.
The workshop dubbed; “Economic Empowerment Summit for Women in the Informal Sector” in collaboration with the UBA Bank took the participants through basic skills in book-keeping, stock taking and customer relations.
It was aimed to aid the women grow their businesses and have firm grasp of the business techniques.
Mrs Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive in an address said women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion have been recognised as key to achieving the 2023 agenda for sustainable development.
She said although many women owned businesses and institutions, a significant number of them were still unemployed while others suffered from financial and business challenges.
“Research has shown that women face barriers in their economic development due to a few factors such as lack of skills or low level of education.
“Others are, lack of access to financial inclusion, inability to find decent livelihood and normally have the burden of childcare.
Mrs Sackey encouraged the women to cultivate the habit of saving to enable them to access credit from the financial institutions to expand their businesses.
“We have partnered Women in Informal Employment Global and Organising (WIEGO), an organisation whose mandate is to empower women economically so that their businesses thrive and leave their children in secured places,” she said.
Mrs Josephine Amo-Asare of the UBA Bank who took the women through financial literacy, noted that cash flow and control management were essential to the survival and expansion of business.
She urged the women to ask for help from expert while showing high integrity that would help their businesses to grow and support others too.
Mrs Florence Kuukyi, Public Health Director of the AMA who welcomed the participants, said empowering women in the informal sector was not merely a choice but a moral imperative.
“It is a pathway to inclusive growth, social justice, and sustainable development,” adding that; “When we uplift women, we uplift entire communities and pave the way for a more prosperous and equitable world.”
