The #AfricaEvidenceWeek: What’s happening in Ghana?

2019-09-09 africa evidence week blog evidence-informed decision-making ghana informs learns
The #AfricaEvidenceWeek: What’s happening in Ghana?

Ghana joins other countries across the continent to showcase developments within the evidence-informed policy/decision making (EIPM/EIDM) space on the continent during the #AfricaEvidenceWeek celebrations, and this short piece by Kirchuffs Atengble provides some details on what to expect, when and why. 

Introduction 

PACKS Africa, a youth-led Pan-African think tank is leading to organise the #AfricaEvidenceWeek events in Ghana, in close collaboration with the Inter-Departmental Research and Information Group (IDRIG) of the Parliament of Ghana, and under the auspices of the Parliamentary Service of Ghana. This is in recognition of the opportunities in this year’s #AfricaEvidenceWeek, which ultimately seeks to showcase the state of evidence use on the continent, and among other outcomes, to foster collaboration between individual organisations. 

The #AfricaEvidenceWeek celebrations are being coordinated virtually across the continent by the Africa Evidence Network (AEN), which is a community of people working in Africa, and have an interest in evidence, its production and use in decision-making. From its location at the University of Johannesburg, the AEN will facilitate these cross-country events mostly through its online platforms including: webinars, Twitter chats, live streaming of events, blogs, vlogs and podcasts. 

What to expect in Ghana, when and why 

The celebrations run from Tuesday, September 12 to Thursday, September 14 within the Premises of the Parliament of Ghana; and between 10:00 and 13:00 GMT. And Parliament chose to host the events, in acknowledgement of the very important role that evidence plays in all its functions – as is normally said in the House, ‘this is a house of records’. 

The events will be participated in-person by about 120 people, crosscutting government, private sector and civil society organisations. We will be joined by virtual participants, and if you are interested in any of these mediums of participation, kindly indicate that through our registration form here: http://bit.ly/31NNgRg_AEW2019

Envisaging that some people might not be able to join directly, we’ve made provision for delayed access to these events through access to summary reports for each day’s proceedings, video recordings of the different sessions, as well as presentations produced for each of the sessions. You can check our website for these resources a week after the celebrations. 

Events and activities 

A mixture of formats will be used to facilitate the different events, and will include presentations, forums and workshops. Most of these sessions will be made simultaneously available through livestreaming for remote live access. Next is a listing of events to expect in this year’s celebrations. 

Opening ceremony 

The opening ceremony will be graced by Parliamentary leadership and representatives of the SDG governance structure in Ghana. It will take the form of a high-level sensitisation meeting on EIPM in the country, which will be used also to launch a Research & Information Agenda and a Service Charter for IDRIG, 2 publications for enhanced EIPM at the Parliament of Ghana. 

Some officers of the Parliamentary Service and the Civil Service of Ghana who were previous beneficiaries of capacity building initiatives for EIPM in their organisations will also make presentations on medium term outcomes from such enterprises. 

Evidence use in the sanitation sector of Accra 

Recognising that sanitation is a big problem in the nation’s capital city, this session will bring together different stakeholders within the sector to make dialogued submissions on the extent to which their organisations are making use of evidence in addressing the issues of sanitation in Accra, and what can be done better. 

Programmes to enhance production and utilisation of data in policy 

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) will be engaged in this session to make known to the evidence community programmes for enhancing the production and use of evidence in policy. This is intended to showcase efforts by these government agencies to make quality evidence largely available. 

Use of evidence by the Media and CSOs 

Leading CSOs in the country (from different sectors) and editors from different media organisations will be engaged in this session to share experiences and learnings on the different tools, methods and approaches for making use of evidence to influence policy and general social development. Such evidence may be those produced by themselves or sourced from secondary entities. An objective in this session will be to promote responsible journalism. 

Training sessions 

Two parallel training workshops are tabled to facilitate capacity within the evidence community. While one touches on navigating and evaluating quality evidence, the other will concentrate on producing short videos to communicate evidence. 

A special invitation to join 

With these few details, we expect that your inclinations have been excited to join the #AfricaEvidenceWeek celebrations, and particularly to participate either directly (in-person or remotely) or indirectly through publications from the events. Make sure to register via our online form to reserve a seat for yourself in this burgeoning movement in Ghana. 

Akwaaba! You are warmly welcome!

The views expressed in published blog posts, as well as any errors or omissions, are the sole responsibility of the author/s and do not represent the views of the Africa Evidence Network, its secretariat, advisory or reference groups, or its funders; nor does it imply endorsement by the afore-mentioned parties.