Background

The Rural Enterprises Programme (REP) is part of efforts by the Government of Ghana (GOG) to reduce poverty and improve living conditions in rural areas by improving infrastructure, technologies and skills needed for private sector development. The overall goal of REP is to contribute to the improvement of the livelihoods of rural micro and small entrepreneurs. The immediate objective of the Programme is to increase the number of rural micro and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) that are profitable, growing and creating employment opportunities.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has the overall responsibility for the implementation of REP. As part of its realignment to the Industrial Transformation Agenda of the Government, REP is establishing 67 Business Resource Centres (BRCs) across the country. The first batch of 37 BRCs began operations on 3rd August 2020 while construction of the remaining 30 are at various stages of completion nationwide.

The BRCs are designed as one stop enterprise support centres at the district level providing a broad range of business development services (BDS) to potential and existing entrepreneurs and enterprises. They also operate as financial and investment facilitation hubs and business information repositories for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Among the specific activities undertaken by the BRC are: Business Opportunity Identification; Business Concept Validation; Business Plan Preparation; Facilitation of Access to Credit/Finance; Project Start Up Support; Business Health Check and Diagnostics; Business Counselling and Mentorship/Hand Holding; Consultancy and Advisory Services; and Entrepreneurship and Management Training. The rest are Agency Representation Services and Regulatory Services under the Registrar Generals Department (RGD), Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre.