The Centre for Democratic Development, Ghana (CDD-Ghana) under the Evidence for Development (E4D) project, has indicated why Ghana needs standardised data in policy-making.  

The initiative taken by the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) and its partner, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, sponsor of E4D, hope to inform on the importance of the country moving towards a more cohesive “Ghana Data Ecosystem” that would support evidence use in decision-making.

As contained in a media release issued by the policy think-tank, CDD-Ghana, policy actors in the country have shown their readiness to standardize evidence-use in policy-making to improve development outcomes.

Accordingly, the policy advisors and actors have called for a stronger collaboration
among state institutions and agencies, CSOs and academia to overcome the challenges and constraints in gathering, accessing, and using data in their work.

It said the initiative was a product of a two-day national multi-stakeholder forum organized by the Centre on institutionalising evidence use in policy and practice.

The forum, held under the auspices of the Centre’s Evidence for Development (E4D) project,
sought to review existing initiatives that have adopted the use of evidence and data in policy-
making and also to explore opportunities and mechanisms to help in proposing a framework for multi-stakeholder collaboration to advance evidence use in practice.

To enrich discussions, the event brought together representatives from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), academics, local government officials, CSOs and the E4D project partners in Accra last week.

The E4D is a pilot project initiated by CDD-Ghana to strengthen the capacity and incentives of policy actors to access and use relevant data and evidence to inform policy decision-making and program implementation to improve social development outcomes at the sub-national level in Ghana.

The project, piloted in three (3) project districts, namely, Bolgatanga East in the Upper East Region, Dormaa East in the Bono Region and Sagnarigu in the Northern Region, has significantly contributed to developing capacities, promoting networks and partnerships, and increasing evidence use in policy and practice.

Awal Mohammed, Senior Research Analyst/Team lead, Social Accountability & SDGs
Programming at CDD-Ghana, stressed the need to allow evidence to drive the State’s decisions towards ensuring actual development.

“The idea of continuously talking about the need for evidence to inform the decisions that we
make is important. We have to build the kinds of partnerships and coalitions that allows us to have a bigger voice and leverage on each other’s resources, capacities and social capitals to be able to drive these changes and behaviours that we want to see,” he said.

Patience Ampomah, a Planning Analyst at the NDPC, highlighted the progress made by the Commission regarding evidence-based policy formulation. “There is a lot of progress that has been made with regards to acknowledgement of the institution’s roles and how we can help when it comes to implementation of the plans. We are also gradually whipping up the interest of the citizenry and even at our CSOs levels too,” said Ms Ampomah explained.