GNA – A Canadian non-governmental organization (NGO) SOCODEVI has trained about 25 rice par-boilers in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, in advanced business management and leadership skills. The training was under its model ‘PROCED’ project.
The beneficiaries were leaders from the BBN (Bolgatanga, Bawku, and Navrongo) Co-operative, an association which the NGO earlier partnered with to establish the rice par-boilers group in the Upper East Region.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Ms Beatrice Esses, the Project Coordinator for PROCED, said the training sought to strengthen the knowledge and skills of women and contribute to the development of business networks of the rice par-boilers.
Ms Esses said it would also boost their active participation in decision-making and taking up leadership roles in matters that concern their communities.
Madam Gilberta Akuka, the President of the BBN Co-operative and a beneficiary of the training, said the training helped teach them how to manage their rice processing businesses and develop the co-operative.
She said women entrepreneurs in rural settings were often faced with a lack of knowledge and skills on how to grow their businesses.
This, she said, had marred their economic growth as well as their struggle to achieve a better living.
The PROCED project, an Inclusive and Sustainable Model Cooperative Development Programme, aims at improving the lives of households and is being implemented across three African countries, including Ghana.
It seeks to attain four of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as goal one, goal five, goal eight, and goal 13, to improve the living conditions of men and women in their operational areas.
In Ghana, the PROCED targets to achieve its first intermediate outcome, which is to transfer more power to women in economic decision-making by focusing its efforts on structuring Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) involved in post-harvest operations, processing and marketing of rice products.
Through the intervention, the PROCED is acting to consolidate the target organizations to enhance the sustainability of the economic operations of processing paddy rice into parboiled rice and bagging the product to be marketed across cities in Ghana.
Source: Ghana News Agency