Accra, Ghana//-Senior officials of MTN Ghana today engaged more than 50 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the Greater Accra Region to update and seek feedback from them on the operations of the telecom giant.
The event dubbed MTN Stakeholder Forum (CSOs’ Edition) also allows the officials of the company to solicit views from the civil society actors as to how to improve telecom services and implementations of the company’s corporate responsibility initiatives in the country.
Speaking to journalists after the forum, MTN Ghana’s Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer, Madam Adwoa Wiafe said: “Today we met with CSOs in a stakeholder engagement. As you know, every year we engage the media and other stakeholders across the country on MTN, what we are doing, what we are contributing, and to seek feedback from them as well on our operations, and in which areas we can improve. We also seek suggestions and interact with stakeholders most of them are also our customers”.
So, this was an interaction session with CSOs, because we recognised that we haven’t engaged CSOs enough and we think that they are critical stakeholders in what we do, helping them to understand what we do and the industry and how to support the industry itself in terms of advocacy, and the issues that come out, and how they position the issues”.
She added that today’s forum being the maiden one for the collective CSOs was used to meet with them to talk about the MTN business, the industry and some of the issues around the network so that they could have a better understanding of what they do, and their sustainability initiatives.
Madam Wiafe who was impressed by the turnout, and the calibre of CSOs including the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Afrobarometer, and Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) which participated actively in the forum, assured that similar forums would be organised for CSOs in the other regions of the country.
Partnership Opportunities
So, partnering with other entities is something that we do and now we want to scale up because we want to increase the impact that we have in various areas, and we invited these CSOs here and they cover a range of areas.
What we say at MTN is that we always want to tap into national priority areas and provide support, and we don’t want to do it alone. We believe that there is strength in numbers, and they will bring their expertise, she said.
“We don’t have all the expertise in all these areas, so they (CSOs) can bring their expertise and we can also add our support and together we can work to reach a wider cross-section of the society that won’t if we did it on our own.
So, this was part of the reason why we brought in the CSOs particularly because they are working in various areas. We are even thinking about how we can transfer digital skills, training women, and farmers and all these are areas that we are interested in, so we are willing to discuss opportunities for partnerships”.
Farmers
When asked whether farmers could also benefit from a forum, Madam Wiafe who was the main speaker at the forum answered in the affirmative, assuring that the company could organise one for a group of farmers as they did for the CSOs.
“It is something that we can surely think about as you know during our Y’ello Care, we commissioned this smart farming which is something that we want to propagate. It is an initiative that we want to also make available to people so that they know they can improve upon their yields and the methods that they use in farming even if they have a very small farm.
These are proven methods they are not like new methods. They are proven and we are partnering with a group of a team of people who are supporting with that. So, it is something that we can look to, and we are available to talk about it”.
Advice
She advised the non-state actors that there is an opportunity for them to work together. Individually, they cannot achieve much, but together they can make a great impact. So, it is important for them to work together in the spaces that are of interest and are of priority to be able to get the results that they all expect, Madam Wiafe emphasised.
SMEs’ needs
A Senior Manager of Enterprise Commercial of MTN Ghana, Benedict Bentel who spoke on MTN Business and what that section of the business does for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) noted that SMEs constitute about 90% of businesses operating in the country and so there is need for the company to provide solutions to cater their needs.
To this end, he said this year, the company had a lot of collaborations with SMEs which had been their focus for two years which continue to 2026 by empowering and training players in the country’s SME sector.
“We are focusing on developing and empowering them with the necessary tools that need to enhance their operations in the various fields that they operate. Currently, we are trying to help them in the formalisation of the SME sector, so we are bringing them tools to help transform their businesses and then make them able to access financial instruments” including bank loans”, he explained.
Appreciation
The CSOs were very appreciative of the maiden forum and thanked MTN Ghana for organising such an informative, educative and insightful event for them.
During the questions and answers session which was moderated by the Senior Manager for Corporate Communications of MTN Ghana, Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu, the CSOs asked questions relating to mobile money transactions, network quality, internet data, among others, while the officials provided the answers to their questions.
The maiden CSOs’ forum was put together by the Corporate Communications Department of MTN Ghana.
