Thirteen major buyers listed on the Africa Partner Pool (APP) have over the past year floated tenders worth more than US$37 million which featured bids from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within the Invest in Africa (IIA) initiative.
Over 900 registered companies across 18 sectors have been hooked onto the APP, which is a platform which matches large buyers from oil and gas, financial services, manufacturing and consulting firms, to the SMEs to help grow the small firms.
This came to light in Accra last week at the first anniversary of the APP and a networking session for members listed on the APP platform.
The APP is Ghana’s first cross-sector online business directory that connects larger international and Ghanaian companies (buyers) to local businesses.
It was created by Invest in Africa (IIA), an organisation focused on tackling shared private sector challenges to allow local companies promote their goods and services to a wider market.
It also helps larger international and Ghanaian companies to find credible Ghanaian suppliers and meet their local content needs quicker and more cost effectively through its search functionality.
The Country Manager for IIA Ghana, Mr Sam Brandful, said at the ceremony that APP was the core of its work in Ghana as it aimed to assist local suppliers, promote their businesses and increase their ability to tender more competitively.
He said it would also help them to access training and support from IIA partners and the African Development Bank to build capacity and grow their businesses.
This will be under business training initiative called the Business Linkage Programme (BLP) for SMEs on the platform.
AGI
The President of the Association of Ghanaian Industries (AGI), Mr James Asare Agyei, who was the guest of speaker, indicated that the challenge in realising the full potential of the APP had been the ability to communicate this laudable idea to SMEs in the rural sectors.
“In some cases, you talk to some of these SMEs and they are not aware,” he said.
He, however, pointed out that going forward, the AGI would integrate some of the promotional programmes of the APP in its activities to ensure that it brought them to the notice of some of these SMEs.
Source: Graphic