The Grants Management Committee of the Adwumawura programme has launched a nationwide pitching exercise across all 16 regions of Ghana, giving youth-owned businesses the opportunity to compete for financial and input grants before panels of industry and academic experts.
The programme, implemented by the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) under the Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment, enrolled its first cohort of 10,000 young Ghanaians, who received business development training, startup capital, mentorship and equipment support following the programme’s launch in Kumasi in March 2025. It attracted more than 120,000 applications in its first cycle.
Participants drawn from all 261 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) completed an intensive five-week capacity-building programme covering entrepreneurship skills, business startup strategies, and scaling techniques before advancing to the pitching stage.
The committee is evaluating 10,887 Adwumawura-supported enterprises to identify at least 2,000 viable, scalable, and impactful businesses with demonstrated potential to generate jobs and stimulate local economies. Officials have urged participants to remain calm throughout the process, which is designed to ensure grant disbursements are equitable, merit-based, and impactful.
The Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), a member of the Grants Management Committee, has announced plans to establish a dedicated Adwumawura Fund targeting high-impact businesses emerging from the programme, aimed at ensuring continuity of support for beneficiaries beyond the initial grant phase.
The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) has also announced plans to support businesses with registration at the Office of the Registrar of Companies and facilitate regulatory certifications from the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), and the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), to remove bottlenecks that hinder growth.
The pitching exercise forms a central pillar of President John Dramani Mahama’s RESET agenda, which prioritises youth entrepreneurship as a driver of decent and sustainable employment across Ghana.
