The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Friday launched the second National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS II) in Accra.

The five-year strategic document was a framework drafted to assist the GSS to “strengthen its statistical capacity across the National Statistical System (NSS)”.

NSDS II follows the yet-to-end Ghana Statistics Development Plan (GSDP), which covered the period of 2009-2013.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Baah Wadie, the Acting Government Statistician said the NSDS II would provide strategic direction for Statistical production in the country for the next five years and had considered the priority statistical activities of 16 core Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which remain vital to the statistical needs of the country.

He said the pertinence of the NSS could not be over-emphasised as government agencies, since the private sector and development partners required official statistics to enable evidence-based policy making, track policy impacts as well as inform investment decisions and interventions.

He said the NSS composed data producers, suppliers and users that the Service needed to synchronise to produce a range of official statistics.

Mr Wadie noted that statistical production was impacted by internal and external factors including the demand by the political-economic system for more apt data as well as evidence by the public as proof of the effectiveness of social interventions.

Mrs Mona Quartey, the Deputy Minister of Finance, commended the achievement of the NSDS I, which, according to her, saw an ‘exponential increase’ in the type, and volume of data produced as well as the number of producers, and innovations on how to collect, analyse and communicate data.

She said the NSDS II would address the under-development of the administrative system in Ghana with the production of quality data at a depreciated cost while retaining crucial survey credibility.

The Deputy Minister touched on some significant goals of the Strategy including an “improved legal and regulatory environment, which would increase the coordinating ability of the GSS, focus on human resources to ensure the right combination of skills within the system to deliver needed statistics as well as update the statistical infrastructure which would also address issues of harmonisation to keep products and services relevant.”

Representatives of the MDAs and stakeholders of the Ghana Statistical Service present were urged to support the NSDS II both financially and technically for its implementation.