Supporting small businesses in Ghana

What is it about?

Why don't small businesses make use of the support services available in their local area? While it's easy to think of some likely reasons, policy makers need more systematic research evidence if they are to ensure that their often limited resources can be used more effectively.

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Why is it important?

Our article reports the findings of one of the first large scale studies to examine the 'non-use' of small business support services in Ghana. We also discuss the methods adopted and how they might be used in future evaluation studies. The article is therefore likely to be of value to policy-makers, researchers and practitioners working in other developing countries, and particularly across sub-Saharan Africa.

Perspectives

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I gained a number of insights from discussions with my Ghanaian colleague (and lead author), Dr Bernard Acquah Obeng. His in-depth local knowledge of small business support in Ghana adds considerable weight to the empirical section of the paper. The article was one of the collaborative outputs from the ABLE-Ghana programme (2010-13), which examined the impact of different contexts on enterprise education and development initiatives.

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