The writer
As Ghana joins over 200 countries worldwide this week in celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week (November 17-23, 2025), the timing couldn’t be more critical.
While the world spotlights innovation, job creation, and youth-led enterprise, Ghana faces a moment of truth: Can we turn entrepreneurial ambition into actual opportunity?
Every morning, thousands of young Ghanaians wake up with degrees in hand and nowhere to go. They’ve done everything right—finished school, earned certificates, mastered skills—yet opportunity remains frustratingly out of reach.
Meet Abena, 26, a computer science graduate who’s been job-hunting for two years. Or Kwame, 29, whose welding certification hasn’t translated into steady income. Or Fatima, 24, whose small catering business can’t access the capital to grow beyond her neighborhood.
They represent more than 60% of Ghana’s population. And the 2026 Budget—themed “Resetting for Growth, Jobs and Economic Transformation”—is supposed to be their answer.
The question isn’t whether the budget promises much. It does. The question is whether these promises will reach the young woman in Tamale trying to start a fashion business, or the young man in Kumasi with automechanic skills but no workshop, or the graduate in Accra checking job sites daily with diminishing hope.
This analysis looks beyond the political rhetoric to ask: What’s real? What’s missing? And what must happen to turn budget lines into actual livelihoods?
THE PROMISE: What Could Actually Change Lives
The 24-Hour Economy: Bold Idea or Empty Slogan?
The centerpiece is ambitious: a “24-Hour Economy” designed to keep factories running, markets open, and productivity flowing around the clock. Government projects 1.7 million jobs by 2028 through industrial parks, logistics hubs, and manufacturing zones.
Imagine what this could mean: A single mother in Cape Coast working a night shift at a food processing plant, earning enough to send her children to better schools. A young entrepreneur in Takoradi supplying materials to a 24-hour industrial zone. Transport operators, security personnel, retail workers—all benefiting from extended economic activity.
But here’s the catch: The budget offers vision, not guarantees. How many of these 1.7 million jobs will actually be created? Which sectors? Which regions? Who ensures young people get access, not just experienced workers? These answers aren’t in the document.
Skills Training That Might Actually Matter
For once, a budget takes skills development seriously:
- Robotics, coding, AI and electronics entering basic school curriculum
- Six Upgraded TVET Centres of Excellence
- New engineering and agricultural universities
- One Million Coders Programme (though funding details remain vague)
This matters because Ghana’s education system has long produced graduates for jobs that don’t exist while ignoring jobs that desperately need filling. A young person learning AI in Bolgatanga or drone technology in Ho suddenly has global earning potential.
The reality check: Training without job placement is just expensive hope. The budget doesn’t explain how these newly skilled youth connect to actual employers or export markets.
Money for Young Business Owners—But Will It Arrive?
Several financing initiatives appear:
- Development Bank Ghana growth financing
- A coming National Employment Trust
- MASLOC support for micro-entrepreneurs
- FinTech Growth Fund (undefined size)
- Green industry and circular economy financing
If Fatima’s catering business could access GH₵50,000 at reasonable rates with mentorship support, she could employ five people. Multiply that across thousands of entrepreneurs, and you have real economic movement.
The skepticism is earned: Past initiatives have been announced with fanfare and delivered slowly, if at all. Young entrepreneurs don’t need more press releases—they need money in bank accounts and clear application processes.
THE GAPS: What’s Dangerously Missing
No One Actually Knows How Many Youth Are Jobless
Here’s something stunning: Ghana doesn’t have a unified, reliable youth unemployment figure.
Different agencies report different numbers. No ministry owns comprehensive youth employment data. There’s no dashboard showing which regions are worst hit, which sectors are hiring, or which programmes are actually working.
Ghana has a Youth Employment Agency (YEA), but it currently lacks the mandate, authority, and resources to serve as the central data hub and coordinator across all ministries. Youth programmes remain scattered—some under Education, others under Trade, Agriculture, Finance—with no unified tracking system.
How do you solve a problem you’re not properly measuring?
A farmer wouldn’t plant crops without knowing his soil. A doctor wouldn’t treat a patient without diagnosis. Yet Ghana is attempting to solve its youth employment crisis largely in the dark.
Programmes Too Small to Matter at Scale
Some initiatives sound impressive until you do the math:
- A 6,000-person skills roadshow in a country with millions of unemployed youth
- Pilot programmes that never expand beyond a few hundred beneficiaries
- Regional digital centers announced without explaining how they’ll serve entire regions
It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. Well-intentioned, perhaps. Sufficient? Absolutely not.
The Informal Sector Trap Gets Ignored
Most young Ghanaians who “have jobs” work in the informal sector: street vendors, kaya yei, unofficial mechanics, market traders. They work long hours for low pay, no benefits, no security, and no pathway to anything better.
The budget mentions “decent jobs” repeatedly but offers little to:
- Help informal workers formalize their businesses
- Provide social protection
- Ensure fair wages and safe working conditions
Create advancement pathways
So if the 24-Hour Economy creates 1.7 million jobs, but most are informal, low-wage positions with no benefits, have we really solved anything? Or just rearranged poverty?
Credit Isn’t Entrepreneurship Support
The budget treats credit as the primary solution for young entrepreneurs. But ask any young business owner what they really need:
“I don’t just need money—I need someone to teach me export procedures.”
“I can’t scale because I don’t understand tax compliance.”
“I have products but no market connections.”
“I need workspace, reliable electricity, and supplier networks.”
An ecosystem beats a loan. Every time.
THE HUMAN COST OF WAITING
While we debate budget lines, real lives hang in balance.
Abena, the computer science graduate, is now considering traveling abroad—adding to Ghana’s brain drain and remittance dependency.
Kwame, the welder, has started drinking more, his frustration mounting as another year passes without stable work.
Fatima’s catering business remains small because she can’t access capital, can’t afford a commercial kitchen, and doesn’t know how to bid for corporate contracts.
Multiply their stories by hundreds of thousands. That’s the urgency.
Youth unemployment isn’t just an economic statistic—it’s delayed marriages, postponed parenthood, rising mental health struggles, increasing crime, and millions of young people wondering if their own country has room for them.
The writer is Country Founder and Managing Director of Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Ghana, an impact entrepreneur and ecosystem builder focused on youth employment and economic transformation. He welcomes feedback at [email protected]
Source: Stephen Gyasi-Kwaw