GSS trains media, CSOs on Multidimensional Poverty Index

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), has organised a two-day workshop for media personnel and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to provide them with the necessary expertise to campaign for and disseminate the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Reports.This would allow the media and CSOs to step up their monitoring, accountability, and advocacy roles, ensuring that society was shaped to bring about the necessary change and growth.Consequently, participants were educated on how to use the GSS website to retrieve data on censuses, employment, education, and access to water, among other topics.Dr. Owusu Kagya, Director of Business, Industry and Trade of the GSS, told the participants from the Volta, Greater Accra, Oti and Eastern regions who converged in Koforidua for the training that the workshop was being held in four zones.He explained that the MPI helped to address many overlapping deprivations such as lack of education, poor health and nutrition, unsafe water and other disadvantages that poor peo ple experienced.Therefore, Mr. Kagya noted that the GSS had generated MPI report for all 261 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies in the country. He indicated that the training was necessary as it was part of a continuous effort to make disaggregated data available for decision-making, particularly at the sub-national level.'Due to the critical role that the media and CSOs play in advocacy in the country, GSS, in partnership with GIZ, provided training for selected media people and CSOs,' he said.Additionally, Dr. Kagya said the regional dissemination workshops provided an opportunity to instruct participants on how to use the StatsBank, an online platform that provides users with disaggregated statistics from censuses, surveys, and administrative data sources.Source: Ghana News Agency