“These systems were built by people who don’t care about us. That’s why bottom-up innovation works better.” – Mim Plavin-Masterman

Plavin-Masterman’s powerful statement, shared during a thought-provoking episode of the What If Instead? podcast, is deeply relevant to Ghana’s entrepreneurial landscape.

As a lecturer and SME industry mentor at the University of Professional Studies in Accra, I have committed my career to instilling the entrepreneurial spirit in students and formal/informal-sector business owners. My job focuses on assisting people in developing, launching, and growing their businesses in an environment that frequently appears oblivious to their requirements. Plavin-Masterman’s statements encapsulate why grassroots, community-driven innovation is not only an option, but a requirement for improving lives and economies in Ghana.

Ghana’s entrepreneurship ecosystem is thriving yet riddled with obstacles. Entrepreneurs, particularly those in the informal sector, confront systemic impediments that can hinder their dreams, including intermittent power supply, known locally as dumsor, and limited access to capital and markets. These mechanisms, as Plavin-Masterman correctly points out, were not developed with the local entrepreneur in mind. They frequently reflect priorities established by distant authorities or global institutions that do not consider our communities’ particular realities. However, it is precisely within this gap that bottom-up innovation thrives, providing practical, locally relevant solutions that empower citizens and create long-term economic success. This gap and the criticality of local solutions are explored further in Plavin-Masterman’s upcoming book One Size Fits None: Time for an Entrepreneurial Revolution, co-written with Alejandro Juárez Crawford. The book challenges us to make it normal, when facing broken systems, to launch experiments to address them – no matter who we are or where we live.