Ghana Questions and Answers

Updated April 9, 2020

What will the Foundation’s focus be in Ghana through the Mastercard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program?

Support MSMEs coping with business disruption caused by COVID-19

Financial and business advisory support to MSMEs that are providing critical products and services to communities, such as those in the sanitation, health and soap manufacturing industries as well as food production, agriculture, digital economy, and logistics.

• Strengthen enterprises: The NBSSI Mastercard Foundation Recovery and Resilience Program for MSMEs will, through collaboration with financial institutions, provide financial support for businesses to manage cash flow challenges and retain employees.
• BDS for resiliency: Enable business development services providers to design and deliver coaching online or via phone hotlines and equip businesses with tools and skills to build resilience.
• Digital transformation: Supporting digital transformation efforts made urgent by the crisis. Digitization of consumer (B2C) and business (B2B) transactions will help social distancing and create demand for online distribution channels and e-commerce.

Distance and online learning, E-health, E-commerce

School closures have created a significant demand for distance and online learning. Ghana has developed a robust distance education strategy to ensure the continuity of teaching and learning during the crisis. Companies such as MTN have provided free access to online learning resources. E-health and Telemedicine will also become more relevant with increasing containment and social distancing measures. Responses may include:

• Education and skills programs supporting the national roll-out of distance and online learning platforms and content as an immediate response to the crisis, while laying the groundwork for enhanced blended learning in the medium to long-term.
• Support for teachers to strengthen their capacity to facilitate online learning and to leverage EdTech
• Strengthening online TVET instruction and supporting polytechnics and technical schools to provide distance training during the crisis

Youth engagement

The pandemic and its related lockdowns has disrupted young people’s livelihoods and education, exposing them to possible risk of infection, exacerbating their small businesses, creating stress and anxiety and placing young people in vulnerable situations where they are unable to work, learn nor carry on their business activities. Support to youth will be phased into three:

• Direct emergency response
• Resilience and recovery
• Transitioning to regular programming

Agriculture

The agricultural sector will be affected by labor shortages, transportation interruptions, quarantine measures, and limited access to markets. Supply chain disruptions could also adversely affect the sector. To address these the Program will:

Assist farmers in the digitization of their activities, partner with international NGOs to provide food supplies to most vulnerable groups, support youth into urban gardening to produce some basic needs such as vegetables.