As Ghana gears up to implement its medium term plan (METASIP) with its emphasis on working with the private sector, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has recently established an agribusiness support unit within the ministry. The majority of the training of ministry staff takes place at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). Much of this training, however, is not program specific or tailored to the agricultural sector and focuses more on general management issues. GSSP has started working on a project to assist GIMPA in developing a training program on Agribusiness Management that it can offer to ministry staff as well as the private sector.
This program seeks to introduce case study methods for teaching and training at GIMPA and will include the development of real world case studies of agribusiness enterprises in Ghana to ensure its relevance and effectiveness in demonstrating the application of broad management principles to the agribusiness sector in the African context. Last week, this project began with a week long training from a team from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. The course focused on writing and teaching case studies in order to develop a set of case studies and use them for the upcoming course on agribusiness development. The course was held at GIMPA and included members of GIMPA and University of Ghana faculty who will be working on the development of case studies for the upcoming agribusiness management course.