Government Statistician and Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Coast, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim gave a public lecture at Central University on Wednesday 13th April, 2022. The lecture titled “Conceptualisation of National Policies: Issues of Capacity and Practice” is the first in a three-part series that will include an inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Coast in June.
The lecture was premised on answering three key questions based on macro-economic trends and the current state of the Ghanaian economy – (1) Has policy impacted Ghana’s current social, demographic, and economic status? and (2) Given the general knowledge that every policy has a trade-off, do policymakers articulate the cost associated with each of their interventions? and (3) Does Ghana have a criteria for debating national policies?
In the course of the lecture, Prof. Annim shared his reflections on Ghana’s economic development experience highlighting the lack of a macroeconomic toolbox for assessing performance of the economy, 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, and that happiness, livelihood transformation and economic development are yet to occur.
Based on these reflections, he reviewed the process of policymaking, policy capacity and practice in Ghana. Prof. Annim identified the critical gaps in policy capacity and practice including the lack of institutional frameworks and capacity for auditing national policies, pre-career learning programmes failing to adequately integrate the tenets of policy capacity and practice and the non-existence of a formal in-service learning platform.
Prof. Annim proffered eight indicators that both academics making policy recommendations and policymakers evaluating policies can utilise. These are Policy space; Instruments and targets, outcome, and impact; Sequence and hierarchy; Calibration; Mixes; Time; Cost-benefit analysis and Data – baseline, rate of progress and endline.
The lecture concluded with recommendations for strengthening Policy Capacity and Practice which included the development of national criteria for assessing the effectiveness of policies, integration of policy science into academic programmes and establishment of an independent National Data-Policy Institute.
In his closing remarks, Prof. Annim reiterated the key takeaway message with which he commenced the lecture that “It has become imperative to redirect our proclivity in designing less data informed and standalone policies to rigorous policy conceptualisation processes and an assessment of their outcomes and impact.”
The Public Lecture was chaired by the Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Puplampu. In attendance were Mrs. Florence Hutchful, the Chair of Council of Central University; Dr. Grace Bediako, the Chair of the Ghana Statistical Service Board; Dr. Faustina Frempong-Ainguah, the Deputy Government Statistician; Prof. Emmanuel Asmah, Dean of the University of Cape Coast School of Economics faculty and students of Central University, staff of the Ghana Statistical Service and faculty and staff of the University of Cape Coast.
The recording of the lecture can be viewed here:
