A three-year digital innovation project supported by the German Government through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has called for a stronger focus on the needs of informal sector entrepreneurs in the development and deployment of digital solutions.
The project, User Testing and Support for the Adaptation of Digital Solutions for Informal Micro-Entrepreneurs, was designed to help innovators and digital solution providers test, adapt and customise their products to make them more relevant to informal businesses, particularly women-led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
The project, implemented under the GIZ Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development in Ghana (DTEG) initiative in collaboration with GFA Consulting Group, was brought to a close at a ceremony at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE) in Accra on Wednesday, August 26, 2026.
The event also featured the launch of an Open-Source Guide documenting the project’s approaches, findings and lessons, as well as awards for innovators and solution providers who participated in the initiative.
Head of Projects at GIZ-DTEG, David Robert, said the project was rooted in the recognition that small businesses form the backbone of economies and account for a significant share of employment.
“Most of the employment, not only in Ghana but in every country, is done by small companies, not by the big ones which are very known,” he said.
According to him, the German cooperation therefore considered it important to help smaller businesses gain better access to digital tools and solutions that could strengthen their operations and growth.
“This is why we are focused on SMEs and MSMEs, that they have more access to digital tools and solutions and can make more figures,” Mr Robert observed.
He said the project was also intended to ensure that development did not remain concentrated in major cities, but reached smaller businesses in other parts of the country.
Mr Robert said he expected the initiative to produce lasting benefits beyond the project’s formal completion.
He also expressed hope that some smaller businesses in northern Ghana would grow into successful enterprises capable of becoming “anchors for other companies”, while digital solution providers would gain experience that would enable them to participate in other development projects.
Mr Robert said the decision to focus significantly on women-led businesses was informed by their dominant presence among smaller businesses, particularly in northern Ghana.
“Women are the biggest part of the smaller businesses in the north,” he said, adding that women entrepreneurs were also among those with the least access to finance, training and digital solutions.
He noted that women-led businesses play important roles in securing household incomes, food security and sustaining traditional economic activities.
Project Team Lead at GFA Consulting Group, Winifred Kotin, said the project was established because the availability of digital products did not necessarily translate into their usefulness or adoption.
“At the end of the day, we have innovators, but we don’t have innovators innovating for the end user,” she said.
She explained that the project sought to move digital solutions “from being available and accessible to being useful and relevant,” she added.
Ms Kotin said the project worked with 15 intermediaries and a range of solution providers, using two main approaches: adapting existing solutions based on user feedback and developing new prototypes from problems identified by users.
“For phase one, we had 18 solutions that were brought and we adapted them through the research process. Then in the second, we had 12 prototypes.”
The project also received ideas from 36 individuals and startups seeking to develop solutions for the informal sector. Following ideation, training, incubation and testing, six were selected, with the best three receiving awards.
The research covered the Upper West, Upper East, North East, Northern, Ashanti and Eastern regions, while additional testing was conducted in Greater Accra.
Ms Kotin said one of the strongest findings was that many informal entrepreneurs struggled not necessarily because they rejected technology, but because they were not adequately supported to understand how digital solutions worked.
“We were very surprised when we learned that our inability to onboard users through effective training or showing them how features or functionality work was a major discounting for the existing solutions,” she said.
She added that users generally felt more comfortable when someone demonstrated how to use an application rather than simply giving them access to it.
The research also showed that simplicity and intuitive design were critical to adoption, with entrepreneurs wanting digital tools that reflected their actual daily workflows.
She said the project further demonstrated that not every challenge required a sophisticated technological solution, as some users could benefit more from simple interfaces, voice-enabled tools or human support.
Keynote speaker Prof. Isaac Wiafe of the University of Ghana’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab said the project illustrated the broader economic importance of placing people at the centre of technology development.
He argued that digital innovation could only create meaningful economic value when technological capability translated into adoption and productive use.
“Technological sophistication alone does not generate economic value,” Prof. Wiafe said.
He described human-centred design as a process of understanding users and their context, involving them in development, testing proposed solutions and improving them based on evidence from actual use.
“Before abandoning an innovation, determine whether the problem lies in the technology itself or in the fit between the technology and its users,” he noted.
Prof. Wiafe commended GIZ for supporting the project and urged stakeholders to measure the success of digital innovation not simply by the number of applications developed, but by how effectively those solutions respond to real economic needs.
He said Ghana’s digital transformation should ultimately move from innovation to adoption, from adoption to productive use and, ultimately, to inclusive economic value.
The project partners said the Open-Source Guide launched at the ceremony would make the lessons and approaches available to innovators, organisations and other ecosystem actors seeking to develop more inclusive and user-centred digital solutions.
