Data for Accountability

Data for Accountability helps Parliament to improve quality of life in Ghana through evidence, using data to oversee progress towards SDGs.

Comprehensive data for monitoring the progress of SDG implementation is crucial to enable parliaments to perform their oversight and accountability role effectively and ensure no part of the country is left behind. Ghana has made a commitment, globally and nationally to achieve SDGs, and is leading the way with the President playing a global role as co-chair of the SDG advocates (the UN high level monitoring group on the SDGs).

The Data for Accountability project will help Parliament to oversee the implementation of the SDGs in Ghana, by providing the evidence needed to monitor progress and advocate better for their constituencies.

Data for Accountability is the first focused effort to introduce data for SDG monitoring to any sub-committees in Parliament, and has strong Parliamentary support, with both minority & majority buy in. The first partnership between GSS and ACEPA, this project is situated in an emerging, but important, intersection between the evidence informed policy, parliamentary strengthening and data sectors, and will generate crucial learning on how using data to support the legislation, representation and oversight functions of parliaments could further progress towards the SDGs.

In addition to supporting Parliament’s oversight of SDG progress, the project aims to strengthen:

• MP’s appreciation of the value & contribution of data to parliamentary decision making
• Credibility and trust in data from the Ghana Statistical Service and other data producers, 
• The Capacity of GSS statisticians and other data producers to engage with Parliament and provide data to inform policy and decision making
• The capacity of parliamentary research officers to provide MPs with data and evidence that is  most relevant to their work

Project approach

Data for Accountability will use a range of approaches to strengthen the collaboration between data producers and parliament and support parliament to use data to oversee progress towards SDGs, including training and mentoring of MPs, parliamentary staff and GSS staff. Constituency specific data will be developed, to support MPs to better monitor the SDGs in their communities and represent constituents’ needs. An SDG desk will be established within the Parliamentary Research department to support committees to track and report on SDGs, and a Data Fair will be instituted to enable producers of research to showcase the availability of important data to parliament.

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