While development funds are often sourced and received for projects in the agricultural sector, Chief Executive Officer-Chamber of Agribusiness (CAG) Anthony Morrison cites a lack of impact assessment and post-project monitoring mechanisms as key factors hindering the complete usage of development funds.
The absence of a proper mechanism in place to track the progress of projects, their outcomes and impact on the sector remains one of the main factors leading to minimal utilisation of funds received from donor partners such as GIZ, Mastercard and UNICEF, among others.
These are some of the things impeding direct utilisation of development funds for the agriculture sector.
This is quite startling when one considers that over the years the industry has received more than US$600million from development and donor partners; yet of the money received, less than 50 percent finds its way into the actual job.
What is even more amazing is that a huge chunk of the funds goes into workshops, engagements and doesn’t go directly into the intended project.
Mr. Morrison lays the blame squarely at the National Development Planning Committee’s (NDPC) doorstep, as it is expected to be the hub of policy development, guidance and implementation. However, it has failed in that mandate as it lacks the power to reprimand an agency or ministry that fails to deliver on its expected policy targets for a year.
To address this issue, he proposed the development of an industry register or directory with an information management system, where all finished and ongoing projects in the sector will be listed to track progress and avoid duplication of similar projects.
He notes that because the sector has no records or data on ongoing, previous and onboarding projects, development partners are overlapping each other in the same zone of influence; and government agencies are also overlapping by implementing the same projects with different names in the same zone.
Making such information available will ensure that projects are not crowded within a specific area, but rather spread across the nation for all to benefit.
We need to create an agricultural sector that is delivering directly on a mandate for the private and the public sector.
In a related development, Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) launched the Ghana Core Agriculture and Production Methods and Environment (CorePME) Survey.
It aims to establish a baseline assessment for phase-two of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme, gathering critical data to support evidence-based decision-making in the agricultural sector.
It will also provide reliable and up-to-date information on agricultural production, farm practices and sustainability.
The data collected will aid in policymaking to enhance food security, promote sustainable farming and assess the resilience of agricultural practices to climate shocks.
It will also contribute to measuring progress on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.4.1, which tracks the proportion of agricultural areas under productive and sustainable agriculture.
GSS notes that the data will serve multiple purposes, including benchmarking agricultural production to fill data gaps and support evidence-based policymaking; and estimating production levels of crops, vegetables, livestock, fish, aquaculture, forestry and bush-meat consumption.
The survey is meant to assess use of agricultural inputs such as labour, irrigation and fertiliser; evaluate farm practices related to soil health and pollination methods; and provide data for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission calculations in agriculture.
It will also produce official statistics on household and non-household farms to ensure high-quality agricultural data for policy development.
Consequently, a total of 220 trained field officers will be deployed to conduct data collection in selected Enumeration Areas (EAs) nationwide. The fieldwork, scheduled between February 3 and March 20, 2025, will employ Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) to ensure efficiency and accuracy in data-gathering.
Speaking at the launch in Winneba, the acting deputy government statistician for economic statistics and data science, Edward Asuo Afram, emphasised the survey’s importance in shaping Ghana’s agricultural policies.
He noted that agriculture remains a major sector in the economy, employing more people than any other industry – hence, The CorePME survey will provide necessary data to monitor and improve sector growth.
The CorePME survey aligns with Ghana’s Medium-Term Development Framework and supports 12 of the 17 SDGs.
It will also provide statistical backing for the Malabo Commitments under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), aimed at ending hunger and eradicating poverty through agriculture.
