The Ghana Statistical Service has held a two-day training workshop for about 30 Chief Directors of Ministries, Departments and Agencies and Heads of State and International Organisations to enhance the use of data for planning and decision making.
The programme, which is on the theme ‘National Partnership to Harness the Power of Data for Development, aimed to strengthen the national data partnership mechanisms for creating and sustaining political incentives for investing in data and sharing within and across the participating institutions.
It was also to create awareness of the definition of fundamental concepts including data, statistics, information, research, statistical data, database, microdata, metadata and research and develop a framework for consolidating gains, harnessing the data dividend, and building structures for sustaining impact.
The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel K. Annim, said MDAs could harness the power of data through collaboration.
He said the major challenge for sustaine
d economic growth and development since independence was the misalignment of policies, adding that the development of the country depended solely on the effective use of data where sector policies had statistical targets.
Prof Annim said the GSS was interested in how statistical data was been used in the development and evaluation of policies, saying there were inconsistencies in the use of statistics for national development policies.
In this direction, he said the GSS was working to promote the National Statistical System to coordinate and collaborate with all the MDAs to
ensure their Information Communication systems spoke to each other and were interoperable.
Prof Annim said the GSS was working to ensure the country’s policy documents and policies were aligned with data and statistics.
The Government Statistician said the GSS was being supported by international organisations to ensure the harmonization of the National Statistical Systems under the Harmonising and Improving Statistics in West Africa
Project.
The Head of the Civil Service, Dr Evans Aggrey-Darkoh, said Chief Directors held a pivotal position in the Civil Service, serving as the backbone of administrative efficiency and efficiency.
‘Chief Directors must lead efforts to establish robust data management systems that facilitate easy access, integration and analysis of data across various sectors,’ he said.
Dr Aggrey-Darkoh said benefits of data included well-informed decisions, ensuring evidence-based policies, appropriate monitoring and assessment of policies and transparency and accountability.
The Resident Representative of UNDP in Ghana, Angela Lusigi said the UNDP was pleased to support the Power of Data Initiative in line with its commitment to enhancing the development partner collaboration and country ownership.
‘Let me assure you of UNDP’s continued support towards leveraging data as a powerful tool for sustainable development,’ she stated.
Ms Lusigi said data was critical in achieving the sustainable development goals, adding t
hat data could be used to influence change.
Dr Grace Bediako, Board Chair of GSS, said the effective use of data could revolutionalise the world, business, nation as well as personal lives, when used.
She said the GSS Board and Management and the Head of the Office of Civil Service, are ready to support your statistical endeavours to harness the dynamic power of data.
‘The partnership in data revolution has begun. We invite you to express your thoughts, concerns and capacity needs of your institutions.
Let us make sure that we can speak authoritatively using data and statistical information in our policy discourse, planning, programming, decision making and accountability frameworks,’she added.
Source: Ghana News Agency