By Emmanuel Todd, GNA
Accra, Dec 13, GNA - Proffessor George Gyan-Baffour, Minister for Planning has said Technology held great potential for data production and utilization to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
He said, "When technology is deployed in delivering services, it will enhance the possibility of generating data from them in real time."
He said to increase the availability of real time quality data, partnerships and collaborations were an important step to ensure the delivery and achievement of development objectives.
He said this in his address delivered by Mr William Siabi, Deputy Minister Monitoring and Evaluation on his behalf at a Data for Good Showcase on using Telecommunication Data to enhance statistics in Accra on the theme: "Technology and Innovation for the Production of Official Statistics."
The project by Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in partnership with Flowminder, Vodafone foundation, Hewlett Foundation is to access data in real time to enhance the work of GSS in data collection.
He said there was the need to revolutionise and be innovative; that Technology gave the capability for things to be done more differently and efficiently.
"Filling the data gaps requires a step change in the way data are collected and processed; the existing data collection regime alone cannot provide the timely and the much needed disaggregation and other metrics to transform our country," he said.
He commended Vodafone Ghana for making their data available free of charge and Flowminder Foundation, for leading the way by agreeing to allow anonymised and aggregated data from their servers to be used for the project.
Mr Omar Seidu, Head of Demographic Statistics and SDGs Coordinator at GSS said to achieve the SDGs, there was the need to invest in data systems and was confident that their successful partnership with Vodafone Ghana and Flowminder was the way forward to leverage data for good.
Patricia Obo-Nai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana expressed her excitement adding that the collaboration was a proof that telecommunications such as Vodafone could leverage the strengths of their core business to do good in a more consistent and sustainable way.
"We pledge our commitment to ensure that data is mined for the good of every Ghanaian," she said.
Tracey Li, Project Manager and Data Scientist at Flowminder said capacity strengthening was critical to support a culture, where decisions were based on data.
"Our role is to ensure that in-country experts are provided with the latest innovations, including; methods and tools such as Flowminder’s open-source software - FlowKit, alongside skills development, to make this happen securely and successfully”, she said.
GNA
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