The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is undertaking a comprehensive strategy to streamline the production of official statistics for implementation in January 2009.
To this end, the GSS in collaboration with other data producing ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and with funding from its major development
partners, has developed two strategic documents, the Ghana Statistics Development Plan (GSDP) and the Corporate Plan.
Mr Selase Assemsuro, Northern Regional Statistician, announced
this at a regional workshop on: "New strategies for the production of official statistics", in Tamale on Tuesday.
Representatives from the Regional Planning and Coordinating Unit (RPCU), civil society organisations, NGOs and the media attended the one-day workshop organized by the GSS.
The forum was among other things, to inform the target participant of the main thrust of the two strategic documents expected to be inaugurated in November, this year, and to enlist their support and cooperation to ensure a successful implementation of the documents.
It also sought to determine specific statistical needs that were not being met currently and to delineate strategies for dealing with the gaps.
Mr Assemsuro who was welcoming the participants to the workshop, noted that a number of recent development initiatives in the country had led to an increasing demand for socio-economic statistical information.
He said among the statistical information required were those for monitoring and evaluating the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), as well as those for measuring the progress and achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
He, however, bemoaned the fact that data needs of users of official statistics were not adequately met as problems of harmonization of concepts and incompatibility of data from different sources persisted.
"A comprehensive strategy to streamline the production of official statistics therefore is in the process of being finalized and implementation to begin in January, 2009," he said.
Mr Assemsuro said the two documents would among other things, help build a more vibrant and dependable National Statistics System (NSS)
The GSDP, he said, was a comprehensive and an all inclusive document "seeking to bring on board all statistics producing MDAs and institutions under the NSS with the GSS playing an effective coordinating role".
"The GSS will build the capacities of statistical units of the MDAs leading to shared methodologies and common procedures, synchronised data collection, harmonised concepts and definitions, higher quality data and greater availability of data," he said.
The Regional Statistician said the GSS Corporate Plan outlined the products and services to be produced within the five-year plan period from 2009 to 2013, adding that, the corporate plan also provided the administrative and management base for the implementation of the two documents.
Mr Francis K. Yankey, a Principal Statistician at the GSS and a resource person at the workshop, announced that preparatory activities for the 2010 Population and Housing Census were on-going, adding that, a trial census was slated for November, 2009.
Mr Yankey said the country's population hovered around an estimated 22 million taking into account the current population growth rate of 2.7 per cent.
Other resources persons were Mr Emmanuel Amonoo Cobbinah, Head of Statistical Policy Planning and Coordination and Mr Owusu Kagya, a Senior Statistician, both at the GSS.