The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has expressed worry over Ghana’s inability and lack of capacity in monitoring all 232 indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDG indicator baseline report recently launched by the Minister of Planning, Prof. George Gyan Baffour demonstrated that currently, Ghana has just 70 out of the 232 indicators being monitored as the country seeks to achieving the set 2030 targets.
The report sets the baseline for a selection of indications that serve as the basis for monitoring the progress towards achieving the SDGs which are also aligned with the National Development Framework and AU Agenda 2063 which specifies aspirations for all Africans.
Addressing the conference during the launch of the SDGs National Reporting Platform (NRP) which also coincided with the 2018 African Statistics Day in Accra, Head of Demographic Statistics and SDGs Coordinator at the GSS, Mr. Omar Seidu noted that such an indicator poses a major task towards the attainment of the SDGs.
“At this point, if we only have 70 indicators, then it means that we have a very big challenge.”, he said.
It is estimated that more than 50% of data required for monitoring the SDGs originate from administrative data. Administrative data are basically data produced by all the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDA’s) to monitor and track level of development in the country.
What this means is that, to report adequately on the SDG’s, there is the need to work fervently on admirative data. In line with this, the GSS has developed a data roadmap and identified three key areas that needed attention in the quest to monitor Ghana’s progress in the SDGs indicators.
The key areas the that were identified by the GSS were filling data gaps strengthening the entire data echo system and setting up workstreams as the GSS – the institution coordinating the National Statistics System (NSS), takes the responsibility to build the statistics system of all MMDAs.
The SDG indicators have been classified under three tiers. Currently, Ghana is focusing on Tier one and two because under these tiers, the methodology is established whereas data needed for monitoring the indications are regularly produced by UN member states.
Launching
Launching the SDG-NRP, Prof. Gyan Baffour, who is also Chair of High-Level Ministerial Committee on SDGs said the increasing demand for quality data requires change in the methods and investment in data production.
By Dundas Whigham