Kosmos Energy Launches Groundbreaking Social Investment Initiative in Ghana

March 16, 2016

Kosmos Energy today launched the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) in Accra, Ghana. With DAI’s assistance, Kosmos will take a market-driven approach to catalyze innovation and promote youth employment in the Ghanaian agricultural sector. DAI will provide capacity building support, personnel recruitment and management, stakeholder engagement, investment due diligence, and ongoing technical assistance to the initiative.

Kosmos pioneered the development of the oil and gas sector in Ghana with its discovery of the Jubilee field in 2007. “The KIC represents the next chapter in our story,” said Joe Mensah (pictured above), Vice President and Country Manager, Kosmos Energy, during a launch ceremony on March 16. “It is a program that reflects the same contrarian thinking and entrepreneurial spirit that helped us get where we are today, except this time we will be the angel investor who supports someone else’s dream. And in the process, we hope to play a role in solving some of Ghana’s most pressing developmental challenges.”

The KIC will apply commercial solutions to Ghana’s social and economic challenges. By investing in and facilitating Ghanaian private sector enterprise and entrepreneurship, the initiative marks a departure from the traditional approach to corporate social responsibility. George Sarpong will serve as the Center’s first director.

The KIC will initially focus on agriculture—the largest sector in Ghana’s economy—with an eye to nurturing market-based solutions that address development challenges across value chains. Within the sector, the KIC will particularly seek to support young entrepreneurs and high-potential firms in the information and communications technology field, basing its approach around collaboration, incubation, and acceleration:

• Collaboration: convening Ghana’s brightest minds to tackle pressing problems with practical solutions
• Incubation: surfacing and then supporting promising start-ups through seed funding, technical assistance, and mentorship
• Acceleration: investing in small businesses with the potential to provide private sector solutions to market problems

“Kosmos is a forward-thinking company,” said Zachary Kaplan, Director of DAI’s Sustainable Business Group, which helped conceive the initiative. “The firm has growing roots and a long-term stake in Ghana, and is acting on that long-term commitment with a bold investment beyond the oil and gas industry. A stronger, more diverse, and more vibrant economy is in everyone’s interest: Kosmos is doing its part to help bring that about.”

Kosmos Energy is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company focused on frontier and emerging areas along the Atlantic Margin. Its assets include production and other major development projects offshore Ghana, as well as exploration licenses offshore Ireland, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Senegal, Suriname, and Western Sahara.