The UN has completed the final draft of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report on Ghana after incorporating comments made by participants at a retreat held last October on the Report.
A statement in Accra on Thursday said the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) had just concluded a retreat on integrating the MDG, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and the NEPAD into the UN System's United Nations Development Assistance Framework, which is the cornerstone of the UN's interventions in Ghana.
It said some participants felt several other targets/indicators should have been included in the MDG, adding that although the list of indicators was not exhaustive, it was agreed at the retreat that they adhered to the prescribed format for reporting on the MDG.
"It is anticipated that the next MDG Ghana Country Report would try as much as possible to add other targets/indicators that may be highlighted as specific challenges in Ghana, especially on youths and sea/coastal erosion."
The statement said as agreed at the UNCT retreat, the next steps to be taken are to shift attention beyond the process of preparing the report to content and implementation by taking actions in a number of areas.
These include a formal launch of the Report by President John Agyekum Kufuor.
"In addition to being an accountability tool for measuring/assessing results, the UNCT will use the report's findings to assist government to launch a series of advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns on the MDG throughout the country.
"The principal aim is to involve all the relevant stakeholders in order to establish national consensus for an accelerated progress towards meeting the MDG.
"Target audience will include the general public, the media, leading politicians and policy makers at central and local levels."
The statement said like the retreat held in October, the UNCT's retreat had also acknowledged the importance of timely and reliable data to monitor the MDG in Ghana.
"The Report has already highlighted the urgent need for strengthening data collection and statistical capacity building. The UNCT will discuss with government the issue of identifying national capacity gaps for monitoring and meeting the MDG and agree on relevant support programmes to address these gaps and weaknesses in data collection, analysis and dissemination, especially at the district level.
The statement said it was crucial to institutionalise a monitoring mechanism that could help government to initiate decisive actions in terms of policy reforms, institutional changes and the re-allocation of resources to sectors/areas in the MDG where they were most needed.
"All of us need to assess/monitor results so that we know where we are at any given point and what will be required in terms of policies, interventions/assistance, financial and/or otherwise to help Ghana to meet the MDG.
It said in this connection, there is a proposal that National Task Forces/Sectoral Working Groups of "Scorekeepers" comprising of all the relevant stakeholders be established to share out roles/responsibilities for assessing progress towards meeting the MDG.
Each task force or sectoral working group would address each of or a cluster of the MDG, the statement said.
It said a decision also needed to be taken on when to prepare the MDG Country Report either annually or on a periodic basis.
The statement said there were clear advantages in both cases, but in the light of the administrative burdens of preparing an annual report and the fact that most MDG data did not change from one year to the next, it would appear that the Ghana Country Report might have to be prepared on a periodic basis.
The statement said in accordance with the expressed desire of the UN Secretary-General, the Resident Coordinator and his colleagues would make all efforts to work with donors and the NGO/CBO community to assist Ghana in meeting the MDG.
