By Deborah Asantewaah SARFO
The Ghana Statistical Services (GSS) has called on all government institutions and policy-makers in the various sectors of the economy to intensify their collaborations with the statistical service.
The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, while admitting an existing collaboration with government institutions daily, called a collaboration from that goes beyond the monitoring stage.
In attaining this level of cooperation, he indicated that GSS is introducing a statistical framework that gives policy-makers levels and prevalence of different issues, and averts their minds to different interventions that will lead to the expected outcomes.
“We would want to have an improved collaboration with them, where we can sit with them not only at the monitoring state but at the policy design stage,” he said.
He called for this collaboration during the African Statistics Day, an event commemorated annually to deepen public awareness of the significant role statistics play in all aspects of our social and economic life in Africa especially, and the world at large.
This year’s celebration was held under the theme “Supporting Education by Modernising the Production of Fit-for-Purpose Statistics’.
Additionally, he stressed that making decisions at the regional and national level without focusing on granular data prevents the nation’s ability to achieve the success it envisions.
Prof. Annim further noted that the 2024 theme, which focuses on education, resonates well with the GSS; as a result, they have reviewed the education management information system data that sits with the Ministry of Education.
GSS has also taken advantage of the day and attempted to improve the quality of the data and analyse it over 19 years to see patterns that have changed over the period, he noted.
In her welcome address, the Deputy Government Statistician for Social Population and Statistics, Dr. Faustina Frempong-Ainguah, indicated that the GSS is also working to reduce the time lag between data collection and publishing of findings.
She noted that with modern systems in place, education stakeholders can receive actionable insights faster, enabling them to respond to emerging challenges more speedily.
On behalf of the GSS, she commended the national statistical system for its professionalism, the government, development partners and other key stakeholders for their technical expertise, funding support and collaborative spirit in driving their modernisation efforts forward.
Given the level of support from their stakeholders, Dr. Frempong-Ainguah said: “Together, we are building a data ecosystem that aligns with global standards and upholds our shared values of transparency, inclusivity and accountability”.
The Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, Right Rev. Professor Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, in his remarks as the chairperson for the event, stated that accurate statistics tailored to the educational system’s needs will not only enhance policy, but also strengthen the life outcomes of countless students.
Despite the strides made by the GSS in developing the StatsBank platform and the launch of the Statistical Data Hackathon, existing challenges persist such as bridging the literacy gap, and expanding digital infrastructure among others.
