Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), Prince Mahmoud Iddrisu, has pledged post-graduation support for young entrepreneurs under the International Certificate in Impact Entrepreneurship (ICIE) Programme, including assistance with business formalisation, market access and product certification.
He said the agency’s support would be critical in helping the graduates move beyond training and successfully establish and grow their businesses.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the first cohort of the ICIE Programme in Accra on Thursday, August 20, 2026, Mr Iddrisu said the GEA would “hand-hold” the entrepreneurs by connecting them to relevant Business Advisory and Business Support (BBS) services.
“The point we want to come in to hold their hands, and which we describe as hand holding, it’s to support them with BBS Services, when I say BBS Service, we want to help them in business formalization, we want to help them in creating more access to the market, and we also want to support them with product certification, which is key, because before to be able to penetrate to market, your programme must meet standard, it’s not every market that will just accept anything.”
He stressed that product certification was particularly important for entrepreneurs seeking to access larger and more formal markets, noting that businesses needed to meet required standards before their products could be accepted.
Mr Iddrisu cited the Ghana Mall initiative as an example of the importance of certification, explaining that the GEA could only stock products that met the required standards.
“And even like the Ghana mall concept indicated we run at Ghana Enterprises Agency, we will only shelve your product, when the certifications are up to standard. So at Ghana Enterprises Agency, that is the link we want to provide on this programme so that once they graduate like this, we hand hold them, and take them through the coaching and BBS services and also get them through the business certification process.”
The first cohort comprised 16 entrepreneurs who completed the ICIE Programme, which was designed to equip young business owners with practical entrepreneurship skills, business coaching, mentorship and investor-readiness support.
The programme was delivered under the EU–Ghana Pact for Skills Project: Support Tertiary Education for Sustainability Employability – Entrepreneurship Stream, funded by the European Union and implemented by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in partnership with the E4Impact Foundation, with support from private-sector and corporate partners including Stanbic Bank Ghana.
The participants were drawn from four universities — Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU), Ho Technical University (HTU), Takoradi Technical University (TTU) and the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (UBIDS).
The programme ran from February to May and focused on strengthening the capacity of participating entrepreneurs to develop viable businesses and enhance their readiness for investment and growth.
The graduation ceremony was held at the E4Impact Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at UPSA Amartey Towers in Accra.
It brought together the graduates, lecturers, business coaches, development partners and other stakeholders in Ghana’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The GEA’s planned post-programme support is expected to provide a link between the skills acquired by the graduates and the practical requirements for formalising, certifying, marketing and scaling their businesses.
