Invest in Africa (IIA), a not-for-profit organisation focused on growing local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across sub-Saharan Africa, has been selected by Tullow Ghana Limited to implement its recently launched Financial Readiness programme.

The Financial Readiness programme is an eight-month programme, launched in August 2021, with the goal of assisting suppliers in the oil and gas industry to build financially resilient and sustainable businesses for the future.

IIA will provide selected suppliers with financial tool kits that will enhance their interactions with lending institutions and offer 150 SMEs access to various funding options, as well as insights into financial restructuring opportunities.

Alongside hosting workshops, IIA will offer more tailored, one-to-one business advisory support to Tullow Ghana’s larger suppliers. These will be delivered on the back of a successful track record of similar interventions led by IIA.

Speaking on the potential impact of the programme, IIA Ghana’s Country Director Carol Annang said: “In many ways, the pandemic has reshaped how we conduct business. Its ramifications on financing for Ghanaian SMEs may be felt many years down the line, so even though this programme has a short-term outlook, its overall contribution to these SMEs will be much longer lasting. This is something both IIA and Tullow Ghana can appreciate, given our shared commitment to strengthening local supply chains.”

Wissam Al Monthiry, Managing Director of Tullow Ghana, on his part, said “As a company, the development of local capacity for participation in the oil and gas industry remains our priority. Central to developing local participation, is the ability of our local supply chain to remain financially resilient to continue participating in delivering oil and gas services to our operations. This Financial Readinessprogramme will add to our goal of ensuring a financially stable supplier base that is globally competitive”.

Invest in Africa (IIA) is a private sector-led initiative focused on growing local businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa to deliver positive economic impacts and create jobs, benefitting all stakeholders including governments and multi-national corporations who want to use their local buying power as a force for good.

Launched in Ghana in 2012, IIA now operates in five African countries, with local offices in Ghana, Senegal, Kenya and Mauritania. IIA operates the African Partner Pool (APP), a network of SMEs to which it delivers a programme of business support designed to deliver economic growth and job creation.

To date, IIA Ghana has enabled access to $2.1m of finance, provided 3000+ SMEs with business, technical and entrepreneurship training; and supported with the creation of 39,000+ jobs.

Tullow is an independent oil and gas, exploration and production group which is quoted on the London, Irish and Ghanaian stock exchanges (symbol: TLW) and is a constituent of the FTSE250 index.

The Group has interests in over 40 exploration and production licenses across 11 countries including Ghana where it operates the Jubilee and TEN fields. In March 2021, Tullow committed to becoming Net Zero on its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030.