CAMFED, women in agric sign MoU to train young ladies in agribusiness

The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) and the Women in Agriculture Directorate (WIAD) under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to train young women in agriculture business.

The WIAD, as part of the agreement, will provide technical support for CAMFED to train young girls who want to venture into agriculture as a business.

Signing the MoU at a ceremony at the ministry in Accra last Tuesday, the Chief Director, Mr. Robert Patrick Ankobiah, said the agreement between WIAD and CAMFED was a welcome collaboration as the mandate of the ministry and its agencies was to ensure food security, good nutrition and agric business.

According to him, the work in the agric sector was enormous and, therefore, collaborations were welcome so far as it was in the interest of the general public as the ministry alone could not tackle them.

He commended CAMFED for its work in the area of women’s skills development, saying COVID-19 had affected women in business, especially, in the agriculture sector and, therefore, the need for collaboration to support them.

Skills development

Mr. Ankobiah promised his ministry’s readiness to support as well as facilitate a smooth collaboration between the two, so as to create an enabling environment to move agric forward to ensure sustained growth in the sector.

The National Director, CAMFED Ghana, Ms. Sally Ofori Yeboah, who appended for CAMFED, said the collaboration would enable the two to create avenues for providing technical support to clients of CAMFED who were into agribusiness.

She said the collaboration was within the framework of a number of programmes that the organisation was implementing in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation.

According to her, the two would also collaborate to embed environmentally-friendly and climate-smart agricultural practices in the agricultural and agribusiness enterprises of CAMFED clients.

As part of the MoU, the two, she said, would train CAMFED clients and champions in basic production and post-production techniques to maximise returns on investment.

Ms. Yeboah said the two would also work to champion the entrepreneurial rights of young women through advocacy and policy engagement.

She was hopeful that the collaboration between the two would unlock the full potential of the agricultural sector to create work and entrepreneurship opportunities for young Ghanaian women and men, and fulfil national and international development goals.

Transforming livelihoods

The WIAD Director, Ms. Paulina Addy, also commended CAMFED for the work it had done in the area of women’s skills development.

She said WIAD was a public institution, which worked at transforming livelihoods and promoting the wellbeing of especially women in the agricultural sector and, therefore, the collaboration would be beneficial to all.

WIAD, she said, aimed at developing effective policies that promoted delivery of improved technologies and information on agricultural production and post-production in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Ms. Addy said the directorate also worked at developing intra and inter-sectoral collaboration for development of policies, programmes and projects that enhanced the livelihoods of women farmers and processors, among others, saying the collaboration with CAMFED was, therefore, within its mandate.

Writer’s email:rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh