The National Project Coordinator, International Labour Organisation Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (ILO SCORE), Mr. Samuel Onoma Asiedu has disclosed that the importance of the next phase of the SCORE training going countrywide.
According to him, SCORE which is in its 11th year in Ghana has trained and offered a lot of help which has benefited enterprises hence other enterprises have developed an interest in joining this quality training.
Currently, SCORE training is been delivered in just two regions out of the sixteen regions in Ghana; namely Greater Accra and Western Regions.
Adding that, 350 enterprises have received SCORE training as of now, which results are shown tremendous well on these enterprises activities; thus, these enterprises are within Middle, Small-Middle and Large Enterprises categories.
Me Asiedu made this known at the Lead Buyers’ Breakfast Meeting on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, in Accra.
The purpose of the meeting was to engage Lead Buyers to suppose training programmes for actors in their supply chain.
“It is not just the multinationals supporting this course rather can be the individual enterprises which we are primarily protecting. So individual enterprises should be able to subscribe and fully fund.
In their supply chain, an enterprise that provides services to these organisations; some of these enterprises do business with this major organisation and it is just right to ensure that these enterprises are delivering quality services and for us to endure that, we need to build the capacity of these enterprises. Naturally, the lead buyers have some resources to support these enterprises but also comes with some network to some global enterprises. Ultimately, it’s the multinationals lead buyers that benefit because once you are training these enterprises the services are improved and you enjoyed the benefits”, he explained.
Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme is a global technical assistance programme of the International Labour Organization (ILO) that supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow and contribute to the creation of more and better jobs by improving their competitiveness through better quality, productivity, and workplace practices.
The project is currently supposed by Norway and Switzerland Government but going forward these two governments have indicated to end funding to this program which Mr Asiedu said is a good thing towards funding locally and sustainability.
However, the government of Germany through the GIZ is also supporting this current new phase.
“We definitely need other sources to increase the delivery to the SME’s. Many of the SME’s are challenged despite our help. Looking at cost recovery we still need support once in a while to improve upon this delivery. We are happy to have GIZ on board. However, we are not just focusing on the GIZ support. we want to in-country have multinationals and other stakeholders supporting”, he said.
Speaking with the media, Deputy Director at the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), Mrs. Bernice Adjei said to have taken full charge of the SCORE program, implementation has been smooth, whereas a lot of enterprises showing interest in joining the training.
Mrs Bernice Adjei assured that her outfit is ready and will continue to train as many SMEs as possible to help them enhance and improve their productivity.
However, she appealed to local investors to come on board to support SCORE.
“We are pleading to our multinationals corporations to be on board to train our SMEs so that we can increase productivity, enhance employees output”, she said.
