1. Ghana Statistical Service
The African Project on the Implementation of the 2008 System of National Accounts
Ghana Statistical Service

2. Presentation Structure
Review of progress
Challenges
Good practice
Proposed and planned way forward

3. Review of progress
The African Project on the Implementation of the 2008 System of National Accounts was developed by the AGNA under the Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA).
The five-year project is organized in two phases:
Phase I:
Phase II:

4. Review of progress Current status of national accounts in Ghana
The SNA 1993 is used as the framework for compiling GDP which is based on 2004 SUT and the base year is 2006.
The ISIC rev4 and CPC are used to classify industry and products respectively.

5. Review of progress Implementation of SNA 2008 Phase I
training of staff;
advocacy: user producer meetings and workshops;
development of proposal documents.
Phase II
data collection from census, surveys and administrative data;
data analysis;
development of templates, tables and worksheets.
Phase III
further training, data processing and dissemination

6. Review of progress Status of Implementation of Project in Ghana
Several activities are being implemented in Ghana in order to achieve the goals of the African project on the SNA 2008 under the following themes:
Improving Human, Financial, and Technical Resources;
Improving Statistical Capacity and Infrastructure;
Implementation of 2008 SNA in Ghana;
Elimination of the inconsistencies and incompleteness in the coverage of national accounts.

7. Review of progress Improving Human, Financial and Technical Resources
1st NSDS ( ) was produced to serve as an advocacy tool to mobilize resources for the national statistical system. A successor NSDS II , was developed this year and includes the implementation of SNA 2008
An amount of US$40 million was received by the government of Ghana in support of the NSDS 1 activities in 2014 to build human and technical capacity.
E.g. All staff whose qualification is below master’s degree are eligible to receive a grant to pursue further education to acquire master’s degrees.

8. Review of progress Improving Statistical Capacity and Infrastructure
Part of the US$40 million is being used to strengthen statistical institutions and infrastructure through:
Institutional Reform and Organizational Change;
Enhancing Technical Capacity of GSS and MDAs Statistics Units;
Procurement of computers, vehicles and other accessories for GSS and MDAs;
Investing in physical infrastructure and equipment;
Improving data development, dissemination and management;
Improving project management and monitoring & evaluation.

9. Review of progress Implementation of 2008 SNA in Ghana
The implementation of the SNA 2008 started in 2013 and is expected to be completed in Major activities have included:
Production of a Business register from the 2014 IBES;
Organization of a labor force survey in 2015;
Updating the 2004 SUT using 2015 data, with updates every 2 years;

10. Challenges
Some of the activities are works-in-progress: most notably the preparation of the manual and other detailed documentation scheduled for phase 1;
Funding issues have delayed the conduct of some data collection activities, e.g. Agricultural Census;
Lack of data- e.g. data on informal sector activity is not currently available- need to conduct an annual economic census to collect this;
Yet to fully utilize ICT for national accounts compilation- e.g. hosting on central server and adoption of a suitable software (ERETES).

11. Good Practice
Linking SNA 2008 to the NSDS II means the timeline for data collection and reaching milestones will be published for all stakeholders and act as a vehicle for resource mobilization
Tables and worksheets for all 22 sub-sectors have been developed
Ensures that raw data is always treated in a uniform way
The work has been shared equally among national accountants who work on their own components
Group then sits together to validate all components leading to a high level of confidence in final estimates. Data further validated by National Accounts Committee

12. Way forward
Going forward, the main activities to eliminate inconsistencies and incompleteness will be:
Applying ISIC Rev. 4 and CPC Rev.2 in 2017;
Publishing data by several levels of disaggregation such as gender, income, regional, age, disability;
Applying ICT Tools for national accounts compilation;
Conducting informal sector surveys such as GLSS regularly;
Commencing the use of suitable software (e.g. ERETES) for compilation of national accounts by 2018.

13. Way forward
The main activities to implement 2008 SNA in Ghana include:
Organization of Agriculture Census in 2017;
Publication of GDP by Production, Expenditure and Income Approach in 2017;
Publication of detailed sources and methods for compiling national accounts in Ghana in 2017;
Production of SAM and Tourism satellite accounts in 2018;
Production of integrated economic accounts (IEA) by 2020.

14. Way forward Overview of 2017-2020
The national accounts rebasing and implementation of SNA 2008 is scheduled to be completed in 2017;
Compilation of the IEA and disaggregation of the national accounts according to the ICP- Africa platform needed for the full implementation of the five-year project will begin in 2018;
It is our hope that the full implementation of the Africa project on 2008 SNA can be achieved in Ghana by 2020.

15. GDP…YOUR WORK COUNTS