BUSAC to receive more assistance

The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the United  States Agency for International Development (USAID) have signed a delegated co-operation agreement in which the USAID would contribute GH$400 million towards the successful implementation of the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC) phase II.
The DANIDA had earlier committed GH$800 million into the fund’s operations and is now promising to make good use of the trust reposed in it by the USAID as the co-operation delegator in the successful execution of the agreement, the first of its kind between the two bodies on development co-operation levels.
At a function to sign the agreement, the Head of Development Co-operation at DANIDA, Mr Jan Poulsen, said the agency was happy to see fruits from an effort it initiated three years ago.
According to him, though the Denmark Government in 2008 sought ways of tightening co-operation with the then new Obama Administration, the DANIDA in Ghana was “interested in development co-operation with the Obama led administration through the USAID.”
“Through the signing of this delegated co-operation agreement between DANIDA and USAID, I’m, therefore, pleased to report back to Denmark that mission has been accomplished.”
He said though the USAID GH¢400 million comes at the back of DANIDA’s own GH¢800 million financial committed towards the successful operations of activities of the BUSAC fund, “there is still room for more funds.”
He was thus pleased to hint that the agency would in the coming months be signing some financial agreement with the European Union’s Commission (EUC).
For her part, the Mission Director of USAID Ghana, Ms Cheryl Anderson, said the financial commitment by the USAID was its commitment to help Ghana reduce poverty, increase employment, and create a strong private sector. “We are doing this by giving business a voice,” she explained.
The Coordinator for Trade Sector Support Programme at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr Joe Tackie, said the ministry was pleased to have the “BUSAC phase II run side by side with the Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) II, a programme aimed at reboosting the stand of the private sector in business advocacy.”
The BUSAC fund steering committee has meanwhile opened talks with the EUC aimed at signing  a financial agreement in the near future to help in the operations of the fund’s activities.
The fund is a grant facility initiated DANIDA’s Support to Private Sector Development (SPSD) and seeks to assist the country’s to advocate local, regional and national authorities to create an enabling business environment for a competitive private sector.