World Bank’s $40m support to strengthen Ghana’s statistical delivery

The World Bank on August 25, 2011 approved an amount of $40 million to provide technical and financial support to improve the statistical service delivery capacities of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and nine Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The funding comes in four components – Institutional Reform and Organizational Change; Capacity enhancement; Data Production and Dissemination; Project Management and Monitoring and Evaluation.

“The project’s overall objective is to strengthen the National Statistical System (NSS) in the production and dissemination of timely and robust statistics relevant for evidence-based policy-making and other uses,” said the World Bank in a press release copied to ghanabusinessnews.com.

It noted that the target beneficiaries of the project are all users and producers of statistics on Ghana and they include the Ghana Statistical Service, relevant MDAs, policy makers and planners, Parliament, civil society organizations, the private sector and the international community including development partners.

The project will be financed from a $30 million International Development Association (IDA) credit and a $10 million Statistics for Results Facility Catalytic Fund (SRF-CF) grant.

This project was agreed on standard IDA terms of zero percent interest, 40 years payback with 10 years grace period, the Bank indicates.

By Ekow Quandzie