By Samuel Akumatey
Ho, Oct. 21, GNA – Enumeration of households in the Volta and Oti Regions by the Ghana National Households Registry (GNHR), is expected to begin November ending 2022.
The count is a periodic exercise by the GHNR, which is under the Ministry of Gender, and focuses on parameters surrounding households and standards of living.
Dr. Richard Adjetey, Head of the GNHR, said at a training in Ho for District Liaison Officers (DLOs,), that the pre-data collection activities by partner entities including the Information Services Department (ISD) would be in three waves beginning October 2022.
He said inception meetings, subsequent recognizance visits, and stakeholder engagements were currently being undertaken, and that traditional authorities were being engaged as part of the process.
The Head of the Registry said Memorandums of Understandings (MoUs) have been signed with the various collaborators including the ISD who would be trained to herald the exercise and pave the way for Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on the data collection.
The exercise would cover 12 districts in the Volta region, and all districts in the Oti region to validate and verify all households in every community.
Dr. Adjetey asked the DLOs to ensure they became integral to the process, saying “the role of DLOs is great. You will be blamed for the non-proper capture of data”.
A total of 809,368 households had been captured in the five regions of the North, comprising some 4.3 million household members, and covering 67.2 per cent of the nation’s extreme poor.
The GHNR said the Registry would complete the Volta, Oti and Central regions before the end of year and would employ both census and mobile registrations centres to facilitate exercise.
He said the importance of data to government in targeting alleviation programmes with unbiased implementation would become the hallmark and there was the need to involve local assemblies in the selection of enumerators to surmount language and other barriers and cautioned against the politicization of the exercise.
“Our data collection is devoid of politics. Please do not politicize it,” Dr Adjetey stressed, while noting relevant uses of the household data.
He said the GHNR’s data collection and dissemination helped in addressing inclusion errors in other data regimes.
He explained that the MoUs with the National Health Insurance Scheme, the National Identification Authority, and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme, are all aimed towards inclusivity in government’s support interventions for the vulnerable and pro poor.
“We want to ensure that every planning unit in every office is using our data,” he said, and referred to the use of the household data also for the Labour-Intensive Public Works programme, which supported abled but poor workers.
The GNHR data supports the Free SHS, school feeding, and various agricultural support programmes including the Planting for Food and Jobs (PPFJ), which reached out to 500,000 farmers.
Mrs. Stella Mawusi Mawutor, Regional Social Welfare Director, said the region was gearing up for the exercise, which was a mandate, and assured it would be well delivered to help realize the enshrined ideals of its establishment.
GNA