Prof. George Gyan-Baffour (2nd right),the Minister for Planning, explaining a point to Prof. Felix Ankomah Asante (right), Director of ISSER College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Legon and Mr Shashidhara Kolavalli (left), a Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategy and Governance, IFPRI after the ceremony. Picture: EDNA ADU-SERWAA

Research instititions, universities urged to coordinate data to aid national planning

Charles Andoh Nov - 18 - 2017 , 07:58 2 minutes read

Research institutions and the universities, have been urged to coordinate their data, in order to help the government in planning its activities.

The Minister of Planning, Professor George Gyan-Baffour, who made the call said failure of stakeholders to synchronise their data made planning difficult for the government.

He was speaking at the launch of the 2015 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana in Accra last Thursday.

The report talks about the various sectors that contributed to the growth of the Ghanaian economy in 2015.

“We usually hear the Ministry of Finance, for instance, coming out with different data from that of most of the research institutions.

“But if we work in a coordinated approach, we’ll all end up coming out with one data that will help in policy formulation,” Prof. Gyan-Baffour said.

He noted that while some of the researches made public were in bits and pieces, a lot of them were also not made available for users and that is worrying.”

National Social Accounting Matrix

The SAM captures all market transactions and transfers that take place between factors of production and domestic institutions within a given period in a country.

In other words, the SAM talks about everything that goes into the economy of a country.

The 2015 national SAM includes detailed information on 55 production sectors, 56 commodities and 13 factors of production, income and expenditures of rural and urban households.

The report was put together by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Legon and the International Food Policy

Research Institute (IFPRI), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Prof. Gyan-Baffour also called on the three institutions and other agencies involved in statistics, not to shelve their data, but to share with the government to find appropriate models to synchronise them.

Collaboration

In his address, the acting Government Statistician, Mr Baah Wadieh, welcomed the call by the minister and said the GSS would continue to work with the relevant institutions and agencies to help in policy formulation.

The Ghana Country Programme Leader of the IFPRI, Mr Shashi Kolavalli, also called for an adherence to common data standards, saying the 2015 report adhered to that principle.