Support government to achieve SDGs - CAGL CEO urges entrepreneurs

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Classic Amodel Ghana Limited (CAGL), Isaac Amoako Mensah, has challenged social entrepreneurs to support the government achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to him, social entrepreneurship was vital to improving domestic revenue mobilisation and also helping to finance the policies and programmes needed to complete the unfinished agenda and address the new commitments embodied in the SDGs.

Mr Amoako Mensah was speaking as a resource person at this year’s Entrepreneurial Seminar held on the topic: “The Role Of Social Entrepreneurship In Reducing Graduate Unemployment And Achieving The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

He said social entrepreneurs’ roles were critical in achieving the 2030 agenda “because there are pressing social problems and the need for sustainable social impact.”

“They play an important role in employment initiatives as their style of working with governments, businesses and non-governmental organisations to share and exchange experiences and expertise create new innovative solutions that are making a real difference. These reforms are work to create inclusive communities and shared responsibility to generate change,” he said.

Mr Amoako Mensah, who is an accomplished young Ghanaian entrepreneur, explained that funding the SDGs will total US$5-7 trillion from 2015-2030, and “only a relatively small part of that money will come from public funds,” advising that as entrepreneurs and business networks increase they will be creating avenues for increased opportunities.

He stressed that unemployment was the most growing national problem which posed a major security threat to the country’s economy, hence the need for short-term macro-economic and fiscal policies to help drive job growth, embedding entrepreneurship at the heart of the educational system as a key initiative that will help provide an environment where the dreams of millions of young people to make an impact and start their own enterprises can be realised.

He averred that the reality of the job market had sent many graduates back to school with many also having been left to wonder how to get a “foothold in the job market” while the number of job openings and vacancies are minimal.

“Simply put, there are no jobs to apply for; the labour market supply of graduates has outgrown the labour demand. Experts say the country needs to create 300,000 jobs every year to deal with unemployment in the country.”

In the opinion of the CEO of CAGL, new graduates who were without jobs were not lazy but that they were simply given “one path, one option in life: go to school, get a degree, and then you can get a job.”

…They spent all of this time, effort and money working towards this goal. The “promise” of succeeding in this path might have not been written out explicitly, but the educational systems and society give you little choice,” he said.

The economy, he intoned, was largely controlled by companies, which had money and jobs and decided whether or not to hire these graduates, hence if these companies don’t need your skills, “then you are out of luck.”

In this regard, Mr Amoako Mensah called for support for start-ups, saying that, that will help the sustainability of businesses.

However, he explained that being an entrepreneur was tough and a risk, one that ends in failure for many young entrepreneurs.

“Yet, some of the biggest start-up successes come from the young entrepreneurs. Owning a start-up, in itself, is challenging, having the monetary capacity and knowledge to get a business off the ground is one thing; surviving the fierce competition, volatile economy, as well as the oftentimes changing and unpredictable marketplace is another but those who do succeed will tell you the rewards of entrepreneurship are well worth the obstacles they faced on the road to success.”

Notwithstanding this, Mr Amoako Mensah said entrepreneurship was a discipline and, like any discipline, it can be learned as it was crucial to the progress and well-being of any society whether commercial or social entrepreneur.

Their efforts, he mentioned, were connected to a notion of addressing unmet needs within communities that have been overlooked or not granted access to services, products, or base essentials available in more developed communities.