GSS ORGANIZES BIG DATA SHOWCASE – “Modernizing National Statistical System to support socio-cultural Development in Africa”.

African Statistics Day is an Annual event celebrated across the Continent on 18th November to raise public awareness about the important role statistics play in all aspects of social and economic life in Africa.

This year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has Organising a week long programme which started from Monday 15th to Saturday 20th November, 2021, including a spotlight on how big data can deliver results for Ghanaian Policy.

The theme for this year’s African Statistics Week celebration is “Modernizing National Statistical System to support socio-cultural Development in Africa”.

As part of the programme, Vodafone, Flowminder Foundation and Digital Earth (DE) Africa, big data companies and partners of the African Statistics Week, programme showcased their products and services and programmes they were holding with GSS for produce data for national planning and development.

The Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim in his speech explained that, “The drive for modernization has already taken root in GSS because in order to deliver on our manadate of timely and relevant official statistics, it is important to innovate and adopt new methodologies”.

Data is becoming the newgold and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) will continue to turn out credible data to accelerate national development, Government Statistican said.

He stated that, GSS would partner big data companies in the country to generate data for national development.

Prof.Annim, said data is critical for effective and evidence-based planning and decision making.

“Data is so important, it is a by-product of technology. We need to integrate data to deal with numerous challenges facing the country”.

Government Statistician pledged that, GSS will continue to innovate and adopt new methodologies and partner with the big data companies in the country to produce and generate relevant data to accelerate national development.

“The objective of GSS is to become the trusted provider of official statistics for national development,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, who delivered the keynote address, said Ghana needed to leverage on data to accelerate national development.

He said the world is currently depending on data and that data had become new gold hence the use of data will help Ghana achieve the Sustainable Development Goals(SDG).

The Technical Manager for Digital Earth Africa, Edward Boamah said “Open, free and accessible data will be the key to a sustainable future for Africa.”

“We are delighted to be involved in this fantastic event, showcasing the free analysis and ready services that Digital Earth Africa has to offer. Ranging from monitoring water to studying crops to assessing deforestation and land degradation, Digital Earth Africa service will help government and industry to assess changes and make informed decisions to tackle some of the continent’s greatest challenges.”

The Implementation Co-ordinator at the Flowminder Foundation, Wole Ademola Adewole, said integrating such data into official statistics is a fairly new field of development and we are looking forward to applying our latest methods to support the government of Ghana.”

Vodafone Ghana also highlighted that ,Data for Good project has just entered an exciting new phase of development and will focus over the next two years on turning data into actionable solutions beyond official statistics and COVID-19.

Some dignitaries present are His Excellence Gergory Andrew, the Australian High Commissioner of Ghana, Mr. David Bessah, Mr. Victor Addabor, Officials from Ghana Prisons Service, Officials from Ghana Revenue Authority and staffs from GSS.

By: Sheila Satori Mensa