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MiDA, GSS sign implementation agreement
Accra, Oct. 17, Ghanadot/GNA - Mr Martin Eson-Benjamin,
Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Development
Authority (MiDA), on Wednesday said the Authority had been
doing intense underground works that would make the actual
take-off of projects smooth and devoid of any hiccups.
He explained that nothing much had been heard of MiDA in the
implementation of the Millennium Challenge Account in recent
times since they took office some nine months ago, because
they had been in negotiations with key implementing
institutions, agencies and departments who will be involved
with the project on the ground".
"Some of these agreements and negotiations which result in
the final agreement that are signed take some time, often
about three months. Hence we seem to be slow. But a lot of
work has been done and continues to be done," he added.
Mr Eson-Benjamin said this at the signing ceremony of an
Implementation Entity Agreement between the Ghana
Statistical Service (GSS) and MiDA in Accra, Mr Eson-Benjamin
signed for MiDA while Dr Grace Bediako, Government
Statistician, signed for the GSS.
A total of 2.7 million dollars has been earmarked for the
project.
He said the role of the GSS in the implementation of the
Ghana Compact was inevitable and indispensable, stressing
that the idea was to capture the status of intended
beneficiaries in the 23 districts where the programme was to
be implemented, relate it to their lives, businesses,
environment, farming operations at the end of the five years
and several years thereafter.
The MiDA boss said identifying baseline conditions and
evaluating impacts would involve special efforts "to
identify the indicators, the quantitative, objective and
reliable data, which would set the targets on the basis of
which we can measure and quantify the results and the
expected time by which these results will be achieved."
He noted that MiDA did not have the time, capacity or space
within which to accomplish these things. Hence the
collaboration with the various public sector entities such
as the GSS.
"The signing of the Agreements is towards the successful
implementation and delivery of the goals and objectives of
this challenging programme," he said.
Mr Eson-Benjamin said the impact of the programme will be
measured at the household level to determine the improvement
in poverty levels as a result of the Compact implementation,
adding that data collection activities include surveys to
access current beneficiary living standards, surveys that
assess the performance of farmer-based organizations and
market surveys, among others.
Mrs Bediako said the Ghana Living Standards Survey Five
questionnaire has been redesigned and called GLSS5+ based on
recommendations by the MCC, Yale University, MiDA and
Institute of Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER) to
better measure the Ghana MCA Programme's impact.
She said the GLSS5+ questionnaire would be administered as a
household panel survey to be carried out throughout Ghana,
starting this year through the joint efforts of Yale, ISSER
and the GSS. MiDA is funding the GLSS5+ framework for its
targets districts.
The questionnaire will involve administering the survey
questionnaire to approximately 9,300 randomly selected
households in the 23 MiDA intervention districts this year
to be followed by another baseline survey as a follow-up in
the same households in or around 2010.
GNA
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