The Ghana Statistics Development Project was on Thursday launched in Accra by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

The Project is to ensure that relevant and quality statistics are produced on a timely and reliable basis for effective decision making.

The Project is to be implemented by 10 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) namely the Ministries of Education, Health, Trade and Industry, Communications, Lands and Natural Resources, Employment and Labour Relations, Agriculture, Gender, Children and Social Protection, Local Government and Rural Development and the GSS.

Mr Cassiel Ato-Forson, Deputy Minister of Finance, launching the Project said it aimed at strengthening the capacities of the participating MDAs in the production, dissemination and use of statistics.

He said the Project has four components including institutional reform and organizational change, enhancing statistical capacity, data production and dissemination and project management, monitoring and evaluation.

Mr Ato-Forson said government “is aware that weak and ineffective national statistical systems affect the production of adequate statistical information for decision making and progress monitoring in any development agenda”.

“Without statistics, our reports remain credibly weak and cannot be used for any analysis. We cannot measure any increases in our achievements and are unable to account properly for the resources made available to us”.

He said the country need more reliable official statistics for better decision and for more accurate and comprehensive statistics to achieve targets set within the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda 11.

The Project is supported by the British and Dutch government for the grant of 10 million dollars and the International Development Association with a credit of 30 million dollars.

Dr Osei Boeh-Ocansey, Board Chairman of GSS said the grant and credit facility is to be used to finance data production, improve quality control and assurance of the production and dissemination of national statistics and develop a national databank for official statistics.

Dr Boeh-Ocansey said with the implementation of the Project, the GSS and the implementing MDAs would have no justification for non-performance and pledge their support for the success of the project.

Mr Yusupha B. Crookes, World Bank Country Director expressed satisfaction for supporting the project stressing that it believed in a credible and reliable data for efficient and effective decision making.

He said World Bank supported the project to ensure strong and efficient national statistic system, better monitoring system and effective management system for good decision and easy accessible data.

Mr Crookes urged government to make good use of the project and called for strong commitment and openness about data producers for reliable and effective data.