Ashesi University
Cohort 6 of the Standard Chartered Foundation Women in Tech Accelerator reached further than any before it, into new regions and to women living with disabilities. Ten founders graduated, and five won grants to grow their climate-smart businesses.
Enabling Africa's Climate Resilience
A center at Ashesi University, we are contributing to a climate-resilient economy in Ghana. We support climate-focused entrepreneurs and advocate for government policies that enable sustainable economic development.
Our work covers ventures across energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, waste management, and water purification. We also provide tailored guidance to larger companies seeking to enhance environmental sustainability in their operations.
383
Businesses supported
4m
Metric Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions avoided
$45.2m
Additional capital raised by businesses
What we do
- Venture Incubation
- Venture Acceleration
- SME Green Transformation
- Women & Youth Climate Enterprise Initiative
Climate Finance & Capital Mobilisation
- Finance Readiness
- Investment Readiness
- Project Preparation Facility
- Carbon Market Readiness
- Climate Policy Labs
- Ecosystem Strengthening
- Regional and International Climate Leadership Dialogues
- Faculty Fellowship
- Applied Research & Case Development
- Student Climate Fellows
- Executive Education
Leadership, Talent & Institutional Excellence
- GCIC Learning Modules
- Professional Certification
- International Learning & Exchange
Incubator Programs and Partnerships
If you are a business already greening or hoping to green your operations and service delivery through the adoption of innovative solutions to address climate change impacts, our programs are for you. Our business incubator is open to entrepreneurs based in Ghana.
Explore our programs below, and register your interest in future opportunities.
The Women’s Agribusiness Incubation Programme is a nine-month GCIC initiative supporting women-led businesses in Ghana’s cashew and nut processing value chain sector to move beyond raw commodity trading to value-added processing and growth. This initiative is under the Ghana Private Sector Competitiveness Programme II, a bilateral initiative of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Government of Ghana.
The Standard Chartered Foundation Women in Tech Accelerator is specifically designed to provide business incubation support for women-led or women-owned businesses that leverage technology. The project, currently running in Kenya, Nigeria, UAE, and Pakistan, aims to promote more diversity of thought and innovation in the technology sector and provide more opportunities for women applying technology in their operations to develop entrepreneurial excellence. The GCIC works with Standard Chartered Bank to oversee the Ghana program.
In partnership with Global Affairs Canada, this program contributes to strengthening Ghana’s ability to respond to the economic and social impacts of climate change by supporting small and medium-scale entrepreneurs to develop profitable and locally appropriate solutions to mitigate or adapt to climate change. It also increases public awareness of the green economy, and helps to improve the policy environment to effectively contribute to Ghana’s transition to a safer, healthier, more equitable and more prosperous low-carbon, green economy.
The Green Business Competitions program is an initiative funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through GIZ implemented programme “Support to the Private and Financial Sector (PFS)
MSMEs who successfully join the program will benefit from 6 months business development support & will be eligible to access a grant up to Є10,000.
Between 2016 and 2020, the World Bank partnered with GCIC to support entrepreneurs and SMEs focused on developing locally appropriate solutions to climate change. This partnership facilitated the establishment of a climate innovation centre, aimed at increasing business activity in the climate technology sector and supporting sustainable growth.
Marian Ofori Twumasi left accounting in 2012 to run Mariseth Farms full time. Through the GIZ-funded Green Business Competitions, run by GCIC, she built a five-year growth plan, strengthened her financial records and trained in pitching to investors. Mariseth Farms went on to secure a $560,000 working capital loan from Sahel Capital, helping it expand fair market access for more than 8,000 smallholder farmers around Tumu, most of them women.
