The Aya Institute for Finance & Management, an international training centre of excellence, was officially launched on Thursday in Accra. The Aya Institute, which emerged from a public-private partnership of the German Development Cooperation and four private partners, is expected to contribute to an improvement in the capacities of future and current employees of the financial sector in Ghana.
According to the United Nations Capital Development Fund, financial inclusion
is positioned prominently as an enabler of other developmental goals in the
2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Many individuals and companies often make
uninformed choices when utilising financial services due to lack of or
inadequate financial education, and the inability of financial sector staff to
provide suitable financial solutions and valuable services. Banks and other
financial institutions struggle to find sufficiently qualified staff who are
key to the sustainable development of the financial sector.
The Ghanaian financial sector needs qualified and specialised staff to increase
efficiency and remain competitive in a challenging and evolving market
environment. To foster the continued growth of the Ghanaian financial services
sector and ensure inclusion, more digitally minded, well-trained talent is
required.
The vision of the Aya Institute is to be a catalyst for people development,
ethical, and inspirational leadership as well as socio-economic change across
Africa – one learner at a time. Aya’s training programs follow a
learner-centric approach, where the learner is the focus and an active
participant instead of being a passive recipient of content. Aya Institute’s
founding partners have successfully provided training solutions to the largest
financial institutions across Africa; thus, the centre is built upon more than
40 years of international experience in high-quality training, particularly in
the financial sector.“We are excited to introduce our unique learning
experience to the financial services industry and all sectors of the Ghanaian
economy, to help develop the skills of teams and improve their performance and
productivity.
The Aya Institute year to date has trained about 400 professionals from 11
institutions so far, 27% of whom have been women. 99% of participants who took
the feedback questionnaire are satisfied with the participatory learning
methods which have facilitated capacity building and supported these learners
to improve their skills and accelerate their careers,” said the Executive
Director at the Aya Institute of Finance & Management, Abenaa Kessewaa Brown,
at the launch.
The Aya Institute offers technical and soft skills training in open and
tailor-made formats as well as a job-readiness module that ensures university
graduates are made fit for a career in the financial sector in a 3-month
intensive training session that includes a 4-week internship phase.
“Closing the employability gap and the mismatch between the industry’s high
demand for qualified personnel, and the numerous job-seeking university
graduates, is very critical to the growth of the sector. It is for this reason
that we have, together with our partners, introduced the job-readiness program
- the Aya Young Professionals Program. It will train 150 university graduates,
75% of whom are expected to be
employed six months after the training,” explained Gerald Guskowski, Head of
Sustainable Economic Development, GIZ-Ghana, at the launch.
Aya benefits from the support of its prestigious founding partners through a
public-private partnership under the develoPPP programme of the German Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Aya’s partners include
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (the major
implementing organisation of German technical cooperation), IPC (Internationale
Projekt Consult GmbH - a German international consulting firm), Krapa Ghana
Foundation (a Ghanaian company limited by guarantee, focused on education and
youth development), Chemmedia AG and Quipu GmbH (two German software providers
specialising in e-learning and IT for financial institutions).
Dörte Weidig, Managing Partner, IPC GmbH said “At IPC, we look back at 30 years
of global experience delivering state-of-the-art training for staff and
managers in Eastern Europe, East and South Africa, Asia, and now increasingly
in Western Africa. We are proud to bring our impactful training approach and
expertise to Ghana where we have been active for over 10 years."
John Maxwell Addo, a member of the Aya Governing Council said "I am
excited to finally see the Aya Institute for Finance and Management launched.
It has taken a long time to get here. Aya seeks to fill a gap in the Ghanaian
market by bringing world-class faculty and learners together for unique
learning experiences that will ultimately add value to participants and their careers
and help to transform the country as a whole."
Source: Peacefmonline.com