Accra: Experts have called for Ghana to adopt broader development indicators beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to better capture citizens' quality of life and inclusive growth. They said reliance on GDP alone failed to reflect informal economic activity, unpaid work, inequality, and environmental conditions that shaped real living standards.
According to Ghana News Agency, the experts made the call at a convening on 'Measuring What Matters in Ghana: Inclusive and Sustainable Growth Beyond GDP,' held in Accra on Wednesday. The event was organised through a partnership between the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), and the University of Ghana, bringing together policymakers, academics, and development practitioners.
Professor L¡szl³ Pint©r, Senior Fellow at IISD, said moving beyond GDP would help prevent development pathways that imposed high environmental costs or deepened social inequality. 'By moving beyond GDP, we will not end up with development that creates very high environmental risk and costs, or lead to social inequity, because we have a more wholesome metric that pays attention to those dimensions,' he said. Prof. Pint©r said IISD would support Ghana in strengthening methodological capacity to measure indicators excluded from GDP, including unpaid household work and the state of natural ecosystems.
Dr Adu Sarkodie, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana, said GDP figures often do not reflect the lived realities of citizens. He emphasized that although household consumption accounts for more than 70 percent of Ghana's GDP, it does not necessarily translate into improved living conditions. 'If the Finance Minister announces a GDP of about US$130 billion, the person on the street wants to ask questions about their life! Am I able to afford? Am I able to get to school,' he said.