KAS Ghana
Promoting economic development also means creating the right political and institutional conditions for businesses to grow. An important partner in this area has been the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), Ghana’s umbrella organisation for private-sector advocacy. Established in 1994, PEF brings together business associations and promotes dialogue between the private sector and government with the aim of contributing to an enabling environment for private-sector development.
One example of this cooperation was the “New Code of Public-Private Partnership” event. The programme addressed the institutional and policy framework for cooperation between the public and private sectors and created a platform for discussing how such partnerships can be structured and managed more effectively.
The cooperation illustrates the policy dimension of KAS Ghana’s approach to economic development. While other programmes work directly with entrepreneurs, start-ups and businesses, sustainable private-sector growth also depends on the regulatory environment in which they operate. Bringing representatives of business and politics together allows practical experiences from the private sector to inform policy discussions and, in turn, helps economic actors better understand evolving regulatory frameworks.
For KAS, these two levels belong together: supporting entrepreneurship from the bottom up while contributing to better economic policies and institutional frameworks from the top down. Cooperation with organisations such as PEF helps create the dialogue between public and private actors that is essential for a competitive, innovative and sustainable economy.
