The Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has held a two-day national multi-stakeholder forum on institutionalising evidence use in policy and practice.
The forum, held under the aid of the Center’s Evidence for Development (E4D) project, reviewed existing initiatives that have adopted the use of evidence and data in policy-making.
Opportunities and mechanisms to help in proposing a framework for multi-stakeholder collaboration to advance evidence use in practice was also explored.
The event brought together representatives from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), academicians, local government officials, CSOs and the E4D project partners.
CDD-Ghana initiated a pilot project the E4D to strengthen the capacity and incentives of policy actors to access and use relevant data and evidence to inform policy decision-making and program implementation to improve social development outcomes at the sub-national level in Ghana.
The three(3) piloted project districts; Bolgatanga East in the Upper East Region, Dormaa East in the Bono Region and Sagnarigu in the Northern Region, has significantly contributed to developing capacities, promoting networks and partnerships, and increasing evidence use in policy and practice.
Senior Research Analyst/Team lead, Social Accountability & SDGs Programming at CDD-Ghana Awal Mohammed, stressed the need to allow evidence to drive the country’s decisions towards ensuring actual development.
“We have to build the kinds of partnerships and coalitions that allows us to have a bigger voice and leverage on each other’s resources, capacities and social capitals to be able to drive these changes and behaviours that we want to see,” he said.
A Planning Analyst at the NDPC, Ms.Patience Ampomah, highlighted the progress made by the Commission regarding evidence-based policy formulation.
Ms Ampomah explained that, “There is a lot of progress that has been made with regards to acknowledgement of the institution’s roles and how we can help when it comes to implementation of the plans. We are also gradually whipping up the interest of the citizenry and even at our CSOs levels too,” .
