Distributional impacts of innovation and SME support in Ghana

The Government of Ghana, recognizing the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in addressing youth unemployment and advancing economic and social policy goals, established the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) in 2017. The NEIP aims to enable entrepreneurs, promote innovation and accelerate job creation for Ghana’s unemployed youth and early-stage companies. The contribution of the NEIP to these important policy goals has yet to be fully investigated.

The project is led by the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute and supported by the NEIP. The project team will characterize the SME ecosystem and investigate both the performance of this national program and its distributional impacts on men and women entrepreneurs. The study will compare NEIP outcomes with a control group and will adopt a gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) approach to assess whether differences such as sex, ethnicity, age and mental or physical disability, affect NEIP outcomes.

Through collaborating in the research process, convening workshops, and dissemination events, project partners seek to build their capacity to assess innovation-support programs and to promote policy learning through cultivating a community of practice among institutions interested in inclusive innovation policy in Ghana.

This project was awarded a Stage 2 grant through the 2020 Evidence for Innovation open competition.