Women entrepreneurs urged to embrace partnership opportunities

The third annual Crown Women Rising (CWR) West Africa Regional Summit aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs has been launched in Accra with a call on women-owned businesses to embrace partnership opportunities to expand their businesses.

The two-day summit, to be held in Accra on September 5 and 6, 2019, will focus on empowering women by providing participants with new opportunities to learn, network and share business ideas under the guidance of a wide range of experts and thought leaders.

It also seeks to nurture and expose women-led businesses at all levels to investment and marketing opportunities on the global market and how they can develop their products to meet the required standards.

Organised by the CWR-Ghana, a non-governmental organisation with focus on empowering women, and supported by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) and other organisations, this year’s edition is on the theme: “Entrepreneurs Empowered for Africa’s Prosperity: Engage, Connect and Grow,”

Rationale

Launching the initiative in Accra on Wednesday, May 8, the Country Director of the CWR, Nana Sekyere, explained that the programme was in line with CWR’s agenda to transform and build the capacities of women through series of engagements and assistance.

She stated that although women played an integral part in the country’s economic development by engaging in numerous forms of trade, only a few operated businesses on a large scale.

She mentioned limited access to education, financial and entrepreneurial opportunities as key factors that hindered the ability of women to venture into large-scale businesses, adding that “we must begin to work to change the narrative by exposing our women to the opportunities out there.”

For her part, the founder of the CWR, Dr Emily Hadassah Soroko, urged women entrepreneurs to be creative and embrace innovation to enable them to succeed in their endeavours.