Five teams, five public-policy challenges and five different approaches to applying ideas about liberty, enterprise and institutional reform.
The 2026 edition of Liberty Sphere moved beyond lectures and discussions to challenge participants to apply what they had learned to real-world problems facing Ghanaian society.
As part of the programme, 29 residential participants were organised into five teams—Divine Economy, Jonathan Gullible, John Galt, Cheetah Generation and Adam Smith—and tasked with developing practical ideas capable of addressing problems within their communities and the wider society.
The resulting proposals were presented at the Battleground Policy Pitch Competition, held during the Liberty Sphere Dinner & Awards. The competition provided a practical test of participants’ ability to move from identifying a public problem to developing a coherent intervention and defending it before a judge.
Five teams, five approaches to public problems
The Divine Economy Team presented Freedom to Enterprise (F2E Ghana), a proposed 90-day pilot designed to address barriers confronting micro and youth-led businesses. The team argued that the challenge is not simply access to capital, but the difficulty entrepreneurs face in moving from starting a business to registering, keeping records, complying with requirements, accessing finance, trading and eventually scaling.
Their proposed National Microenterprise One-Stop Pathway would connect entrepreneurs to existing registration, compliance, finance and market systems without creating another government bureaucracy. The team proposed testing the model through Enterprise Freedom Desks and reaching 200 businesses during a 90-day pilot.
The proposal was notable for combining a clear intervention with an evidence-generation framework, including baseline data, monthly monitoring and a 90-day learning report.
The Jonathan Gullible Team approached one of Ghana’s environmental and economic challenges through The Waste Exchange.
Their central proposition was that waste should be given both a price and an identifiable owner. Rather than relying exclusively on mandated waste collection, the team proposed paying people for clean, sorted waste and connecting them with recyclers and composting opportunities.
The pilot was designed for Senior High Schools, where student business clubs would operate Exchange Desks, purchase sorted materials and sell them to buyers. The team requested GHS 6,000 to launch the pilot and projected that one term could divert 1,800–2,400 kilograms of waste while generating between GHS 5,000 and GHS 7,000 in payments to students.
The team grounded the scale of Ghana’s waste problem in external sources, while acknowledging that its school-level projections remained working estimates to be tested through a planned waste audit.
The John Galt Team focused on another issue of economic security: retirement savings for workers outside the formal employment system.
Their proposal, the Informal Worker Pension Access Partnership (IWPAP), argued that Ghana already has Voluntary Tier 3 pension products but that many informal workers face practical barriers to finding, understanding, trusting and consistently contributing to them.
Rather than creating a new pension fund, the team proposed a distribution bridge connecting licensed pension providers, mobile-money or approved payment channels, informal-sector associations and simple financial education.
The proposed 12-month pilot would seek to enrol between 1,000 and 5,000 informal workers and track not only enrolment, but repeat contributions, retention, understanding, trust, beneficiary registration and women’s participation.
The Cheetah Generation Group turned its attention to Ghana’s education sector with the Teacher Representation Choice Framework (TRCF).
The proposal argued that teachers’ formal rights to union representation should be accompanied by more practical mechanisms for choice, transparency and member accountability. Its four pillars were transparency, fair competition, direct member voice and consent-based dues authorization.
The team proposed reforms including easier processes for joining, switching or leaving unions; annual disclosure of audited union finances and bargaining outcomes; and periodic renewable authorization for payroll deductions.
Importantly, the proposal did not call for weaker collective bargaining. Its central argument was that individual choice and collective bargaining can coexist.
The team proposed beginning with national research on teachers’ awareness of union rights and satisfaction with dues arrangements, followed by stakeholder dialogue, policy development and advocacy for administrative reform.
The Adam Smith Team approached the challenge from the perspective of leadership and professional development. Its proposal, BDF Ghana Academy, sought to equip young and emerging leaders with practical capabilities in diplomacy, political leadership, personal branding, global trade and policy.
The proposed two-month blended programme would combine expert sessions, workshops, practical exercises, networking, an in-person component and a capstone project through which participants could apply their learning to a real-world issue.
The proposal also envisaged fellowships and continued development beyond the initial training, creating a pathway from learning to practical application.
Together, the five proposals demonstrated the range of problems participants were prepared to examine—from enterprise development and waste management to pensions, teacher representation and leadership development.
How the Proposals were Assessed
The pitches were assessed by Ebenezer Tackie Oblie, Director of the Institute for New Policy Thinking, using five key criteria:
- Policy coherence
- Alignment with the philosophy of liberty
- Understanding of public policy principles
- Identification of gaps
- Enterprise development strategy
The criteria required participants to do more than present attractive ideas. They had to demonstrate an understanding of the policy problem, identify institutional or market gaps, connect their proposals to principles of liberty and show how their ideas could move beyond theory toward implementation.
According to the judge’s feedback, the projects were solid and demonstrated that participants had developed a stronger understanding of the concepts and lessons presented by the various speakers during the Liberty Sphere Policy Ground Training.
Divine Economy Team Takes the Top Prize
After the presentations, the Divine Economy Team emerged as the winner with Freedom to Enterprise (F2E Ghana)and received a cash prize of GHS 3,000.
The Jonathan Gullible Team placed second with The Waste Exchange, receiving GHS 2,000, while the John Galt Team placed third with the Informal Worker Pension Access Partnership, receiving GHS 1,000.
The total cash prize awarded to the top three teams was GHS 6,000.
The awards recognised the teams whose proposals, according to the judging process, demonstrated the strongest combination of policy reasoning, liberty principles, identified gaps and practical development strategies.
Recognising Individual Leadership
The Battleground competition formed part of a wider recognition of participants at the Liberty Sphere Dinner & Awards.
- Waris Maharaja – Best Participant
- Gido Napogbong – Catalyst for Change
- Samiratu Mohammed – Best Orator
- Simon Asaman – Best Fundraiser
Over approximately two months preceding Liberty Sphere, participants undertook a participant-led fundraising challenge designed to develop practical resource-mobilisation and leadership skills. Funds raised through their individual efforts were pooled to support the buffet at the Liberty Sphere Dinner & Awards, giving participants a direct role in contributing to the delivery of the programme. To our donors, the exercise demonstrated that support for Liberty Sphere was not simply financing an event; it was helping develop young leaders capable of mobilising resources, engaging their networks and taking ownership of initiatives.
The exercise therefore extended the programme’s emphasis on leadership beyond the classroom, requiring participants to engage others, mobilise resources and contribute to the delivery of the programme itself.
From Competition To Continued Development
The conclusion of the Battleground competition does not mark the end of the proposals.
The teams and individual award recipients will receive mentorship from YAFO Institute to support the further development of their ideas. The participants will also become part of the Institute’s alumni network, creating an opportunity for continued collaboration, mutual support and joint development of projects in areas of shared interest.
This follow-up component is important because a policy pitch, by itself, is an output. Its longer-term value will depend on what happens after the competition: whether ideas are refined, tested, researched, implemented or developed into sustained initiatives.
The participants themselves reflected positively on the broader Liberty Sphere experience, describing the programme as having provided a clearer sense of direction regarding their next steps, their personal plans and the ways in which they could contribute to their communities and influence public policy.
For YAFO Institute, this creates a natural next stage for documenting impact: following the participants and tracking what becomes of the ideas developed during the programme.
From learning to action
The Battleground Policy Pitch Competition demonstrated one of Liberty Sphere’s central objectives: ideas are most valuable when people are equipped to apply them.
The five teams approached different problems and arrived at different solutions, but each was required to connect the ideas discussed during the training with a practical public problem. The competition therefore created a bridge between education and application, ideas and institutions, and learning and action. The real test, however, begins after the applause and awards.
As the proposals move into mentorship and the participants become part of a continuing alumni network, Liberty Sphere now has an opportunity to document whether these ideas become research projects, enterprises, advocacy initiatives, community interventions or policy engagements.
That follow-through will determine the longer-term significance of the programme—and provide the evidence needed to understand not only what participants learned, but what they went on to do with it.
Article by
Joshua L. Tetteh
Director, Marketing & Communications
