Accra, November 29, 2017//-MTN Ghana Foundation continued to deepen its social investments in the communities in which the MTN network operates.
In the space of 10 years, the Foundation which is the corporate social responsibility arm of MTN Ghana, has invested over USD 13 million in building school blocks, libraries and ICT centers, enhancing teaching capabilities, constructing and equipping hospital wards, paying tuition and supporting entrepreneurship.
These projects numbering 142 have impacted millions of Ghanaian lives across the 10 regions of the country, Senior Manager, Sustainability and Social Impact at MTN Ghana, Mrs Georgina Asare-Fiagbenu said at a day’s workshop organised by Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) and sponsored by MTN Ghana.
The Foundation which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year would to continue to provide leadership in the communities and to ensure that their impact is felt in all spheres of life, she added.
Mrs Fiagbenu who took the journalists through a presentation of the Foundation’s activities and programmes for the past 10 years was confident that the Foundation would keep supporting projects that have lasting impacts on the society.
President of the JBA, Suleiman Mustapha noted that the purpose of the workshop was to enable members of the association to get some update information on the Foundation to enable them educate the public through their various reports.
“ As journalists our responsibility is to broadcast or publish this information to the general public to educate them on the issues”.
Touching on some of the success stories of the JBA to African Eye Report, Mr Mustapha noted that a research undertaken by JBA indicated that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were either not aware or not concerned about the plight of SMEs, but were only interested in collecting levies from them.
“The advocacy by JBA has resulted in positive changes in policy and programmes in some districts,” he stated.
Instructively, the JBA was established out of the GJA’s special two-year project dubbed “Using the Media to Strengthen Business Advocacy”.
The project, co-facilitated by KAB Consult and sponsored by the Business Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund, begun in 2006, under the theme “Using the Media to Promote Small-Scale Business Concerns.”
Under the project, a core team of journalists undertook capacity development in business advocacy to create a multimedia platform to discuss the concerns of business, particularly SMEs.
In Ghana, the SMEs account for 90 per cent of enterprises of the economy, contributing about 60 per cent of employment, and about six per cent to GDP.
African Eye Report
