Ghana needs rigorous policy assessment — Government Statistician
The Government Statistician has called for a rigorous policy conceptualization and assessment for national development.
Professor Samuel Kobina Annim explained that, “It has become imperative to redirect our proclivity in designing less data-informed and standalone policies to rigorous policy conceptualization processes and an assessment of their outcomes and impact.”
Prof. Annim made this known at a Public Lecture organised by the Central University (CU) at the Christ Temple of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Accra, on the theme: “Conceptualization of National Policies: Issues of Capacity and Practice.”
Professor Annim, who was also a Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Coast, indicated that this capacity building would include the development of a national criteria for assessing the effectiveness of policies, integration of policy science into academic programmes and the establishment of an independent National Data-Policy Institute.”
The Government Statistician emphasised the strengthening of policy capacity and practice due to the fact that Ghana lacked “a macroeconomic toolbox for assessing performance of the economy” and other related issues, which was not good for the economy.
The Professor indicated that there was also “lack of a means to measure volatilities, suggesting weaknesses in policies achieving long term outcomes, contradictions in GDP growth, and other key macroeconomic variables, including inequality, tax performance and trends and patterns in labour statistics.”
The Academic said in view of the situation as stated above, happiness, livelihood transformation, and economic development were yet to occur in Ghana.
Based on these reflections, Prof. Annim reviewed the process of policymaking and policy capacity and practice in Ghana, identifying critical gaps in policy capacity and practice including the lack of institutional frameworks and capacity for auditing national policies.
According to him, there were failures in pre-career learning programmes adequately integrating the tenets of policy capacity and practice and the non-existence of a formal in-service learning platform.
The Professor offered eight indicators that both academics who made policy recommendations and policymakers who evaluated policies, could utilize.
“These are policy space, instruments, targets, outcome and impact, sequence and hierarchy, calibration, mixes, time. cost-benefit analysis and data-baseline, and rate of progress and endline,” he enumerated.
The lecture sought to answer three major questions based on macro-economic trends and the current state of the Ghanaian economy.
Prof. Annim’s task was to look for answers on whether policy impacted Ghana’s current social, demographic, and economic status, whether policymakers articulated the cost associated with each of their interventions, and whether Ghana had a criteria for debating national policies?
The Public Lecture was chaired by the Vice-Chancellor of CU, Professor Bill Buenar Puplampu.
In attendance were Mrs. Florence Hutchful, Chair of the Council of CU, Prof Gyan Baffour, former Minister of Planning, Dr. Grace Bediako, the Board Chair of the Ghana Statistical Service, Prof. Emmanuel Asmah, Dean of the School of Economics, University of Cape Coast, faculty and students of Central University, Staff of the Ghana Statistical Service, and faculty and staff of the University of Cape Coast.