Policymakers urged to anchor decisions on credible data
The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Nii Moi Thompson, has called on policymakers to anchor decisions on credible data and rigorous research to drive sustainable development in West Africa.
He said Africa’s development challenges demanded more than “generic solutions”, and as such must be addressed with timely action rooted in credible evidence.
The chairman observed that persistent unemployment, low productivity, fragile institutions and poor infrastructure planning had hindered progress for decades, hence the need for a culture of evidence-informed policymaking to reverse the trend.
Dr Thompson further said that although the NDPC produced detailed annual progress reports on national development, they were often kept in obscurity, limiting their usefulness to the public.
“Our reports are rich with information, covering virtually every aspect of our development efforts, but the challenge has been that they are quietly given to Parliament without citizens knowing about them.
“Going forward, we are determined to make them more user-friendly and ensure they form a major part of policy discourse and decision-making,” he said.
Event
Dr Thompson was speaking at a development summit 2025, in Accra yesterday.
The two-day conference was on the theme: Advancing evidence-informed policymaking for sustainable development in West Africa.”
The event, which was organised by Development Impact West Africa (DIWA), also marked its celebration of six years of evidence for impact.
Credible evidence
The Member of Parliament for Wa West, Dr Godfred Seidu Jasaw, said credible evidence was non-negotiable for effective legislative oversight.
He said without evidence, Parliament’s scrutiny of budgets and projects risked degenerating into political banter rather than safeguarding the public good.
Dr Jasaw cited recent innovations such as constituency profiling and the creation of evidence hubs as critical steps that had strengthened Parliament’s oversight role.
He, however, noted that gaps still existed in research partnerships and institutional capacity.
The Programme Director of DIWA, Prof. Charles Amoatey, said since the establishment of the initiative in 2019, more than 110 researchers and policymakers across eight West African countries had been trained, while nine impact evaluations had been conducted in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, energy and social protection.
He said DIWA had also disbursed over $1.5 million in research grants, supported fellowships at UC Berkeley, and partnered with the NDPC, ECOWAS, and the African Union Commission to promote evidence use in policymaking.
“Our next chapter is about deepening this culture so that policies at all levels, from village to Parliament, from national government to continental bodies, are anchored in credible, transparent and actionable data,” Prof. Amoatey said.
Measure
A former Vice-Chancellor of the SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), Prof. Philip Duku Osei, said the summit had achieved a milestone in evidence-informed policymaking in the sub-region.
He said that the true measure of DIWA’s success would be in its long-term influence, fostering systemic change in both governance and academia.
Prof. Osei said the ultimate goal was the institutionalisation of evidence used within ministries and universities so that reliance on evidence would become a standard practice rather than an exception, adding “leaders promoting evidence use through their actions as crucial as formal laws” .
