1. PC-Axis reference group meeting, Rome 24. -26. September 2008 Progress report on the Usage of PC-Axis family in Ghana Statistical Service(GSS) Presentation by Appiah-Kusi Boateng, Data Systems and Application Development Section

2. Introduction The idea of making PC-Axis family as a basic tool of Ghana Statistical Service's dissemination strategy started since early stages of 2006. Before then, there had been a CountrySTAT training in Accra for all staff in agricultural section, some selected staff from IT division a subsequent one for two core members in Rome.

3. Installation It is installed on all PCs in Agricultural section, thus it’s use is limited to only members in that section and plans are underway to support it centrally so that it will be available for use by all staff.

4. PC Axis Family We currently use (or intend to use) the following components: PC-Axis(Main module). PX-Web PX-Make PX-Edit PX-Map

5. Other Equally Challenging Tools on Piloting stages 2005-2006 saw GSS developing and testing other dissemination tools namely, GhanaInfo database, Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) and National Data Archiving(NADA) but the readiness of management embracing PC-Axis as the main web- Based publishing tool propelled the inaugurations of Agric Census Steering committee and National Advisory Committee to for see the smooth implementation of Agricultural Census 2007. The target was to use PC-Axis family to create and disseminate the census results and also later use it to publish 2010 Population and Housing Census

6. Other Equally Challenging Tools on Pilot Stages cont’d Preparatory activities took place leading to the design of questionnaires.Then there were some drawbacks in terms of funding. Hence, the preparation of a Five-year corporate plan rescheduled the agricultural census to 2011, one year after Population and housing Census so that we could use the frame for the household selection. Since then there have been very few activities to report regarding the use of PC-Axis software products at GSS.

7. PC-Web Nevertheless, PX-Web gradually has become the main tool for publishing institutional data primarily collected from Ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and other agricultural institutions. All these publications are mainly for internal use. Responding to data request by the public and academic institutions is also done through PC- web. Currently, our herculean task which will soon commence is to use PC-Axis to disseminate census and surveys data via the web site.

8. What is happening Now Conversion of National Transport Indicator Database Survey results from SPSS format via PX-MAKE and PX-EDIT is being used to produce the files from Excel (add-in) and presented in PX-WEB.

9. Future intentions on PC-Axis in GSS GSS has in mind to use PC-Axis including PX- Make and PX-Web as dissemination tools for census results by December 2010 and the possible extension of the software to disseminate all kinds of statistics produced by the organisation Data to be disseminated by PC-Axis will be retrieved from various sources /databases and in different formats. Conversion of datasets will be done according to user needs and specification. PX-Make will then be used to create PC-Axis databases..

10. Future intentions on PC-Axis in GSS The plan now is to concentrate to build PC-Axis databases for all current surveys in the organisation, then other surveys as timeseries data for major key indicator variables especially those in conformity with Mellenium Development Goals (MDG’s).Finally, dissemination on the website via Px- Web.

11. Training session For staff, Producers and Users of Statistics the use of PX-Web to download data Stakeholder training will occur on many levels. When GSS launches the Census 2010, data users will be encouraged to use PX Web to extract Census data. Other training sessions in combination with other dissemination tools, for example GhanaInfo database, Integrated Management Information System (IMIS)