Appolonia City Shares Its Business Portfolio With AmCham Guests

Appolonia City (Rendeavour) shared its business with guests at the AmCham Development Financing Forum. The presentation was part of the chamber’s new initiative to allow members to share their business and services with participants at AmCham events.

Ayesha Abdulrahaman, Senior Real Estate Advisor (Commercial), took participants through Rendeavour’s Ghana business and shared details on their 2,325-acre master-planned seamless live-work-play satellite city complete with residential, retail, commercial, educational, healthcare and recreational facilities city in Accra. Learn more.

U.S. – Ghana Digital Forum

AmCham Ghana, on Monday, March 2, held the U.S. – Ghana Digital Forum on the theme; Securing Ghana’s Cyberspace for Future Digital Growth.

The forum was an AmCham IT committee meeting with government agencies and other stakeholders to gain a better understanding of each other’s activities and perspectives in securing the country’s cyberspace.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister for Communications, Vincent Sowah Odotie (MP), shared some policies and programs that are being implemented by the government of Ghana to build a resilient and robust digital ecosystem.

He mentioned the government’s efforts in fighting cybercrime through capacity building in the judiciary, and the development of the country’s incident response capabilities with the establishment of the National Computer Emergency Response Team at the National Cyber Security Centre.

“Ghana has also ratified two international conventions namely the African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and Data Protection (Malabo Convention), and the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), making her the 5th country to ratify to both treaties,” Hon. Odotie added.

Other speakers at the event included AmCham Ghana President, Ayesha Bedwei, and the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, who stressed the importance of developing new habits to deal with cyber threats.

The forum also featured a panel discussion on the Cyber Security Bill, fake news, the role of data privacy/protection in securing communication and data storage, the state of the nation’s connectivity infrastructure, and the government’s initiative to establish Ghana as a leader in ICT innovation in the sub-region by 2023.

The panel was made up of Mr. Owusu Bediako-Poku, Director of Operations at the National Cyber Security Centre, Mr. Kwaku Kyei Ofori, Deputy Director-General at the National Information Technology Agency, and Prof. Kwaku Appiah-Adu, Head of the Delivery Unit, Office of the Vice President.

The session was moderated by Franklin Asare, Country Director at Oracle / AmCham IT Committee Chairman.

Also present at the forum were executives from VISA, Uber, PwC, IBM, Emergent Technology, National Information Technology Agency, KPMG, Oracle Corporation, American Tower Corporation, National Cyber Security Centre, Office of the Vice President, the Bank of Ghana, and representatives from other AmCham member companies.

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AmCham Development Financing Forum

The chamber, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Thursday, February 27, 2020, held a forum to discuss financing development through the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC). 

James Lykos, Primary DFC Liaison for USAID/Ghana, took participants through the institutional structure, tools, and capabilities of the DFC. He also explained the eligibility requirements of the program.  

The DFC is a $60 billion program to invest in sectors ranging from critical infrastructure, energy, technology to health care, and financing for small businesses and women entrepreneurs in Low-income (LICs) or lower-middle-income (LMICs) countries. 

“The DFC is equipped with a more than doubled investment cap of $60 billion and new financing tools such as equity financing, debt financing, political risk insurance, and technical development.

“With the $60 billion cap, the DFC would be shared among Africa, Latin America, and Asia, with each continent receiving approximately $20 billion under the initiative,” he said.

He stated that the DFC consolidated and modernized the Overseas Private Investment Corporate (OPIC) and the Development Credit Authority (DCA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The initiative is designed to help businesses to expand into emerging markets, finance solutions to the most critical challenges facing the developing world and reinforces US foreign policy and national security interests.

Click here to download the presentation for more information on the DFC. Email James Lykos, Primary DFC Liaison for USAID/Ghana at jlykos@usaid.gov for specific questions about how the DFC can apply to your projects. 

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