Technology holds great potential for data production - Dr Bediako

Dr Grace Bediako, the Board Chair, Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), has said technology holds great potential for data production and utilisation in the country.

She said services deployed by technology, enhanced the possibility of generating data from them in real time.

She said this at the inauguration of a 13-member steering committee for the Call Detailed Records Project (CDR-Project) in Accra on Wednesday.

The project is being implemented by GSS in partnership with Vodafone Foundation and Hewlett Foundation and Flowminder.

“Leveraging technology to increase the availability of real time quality data through partnerships and collaborations is an important step to ensure we deliver and achieve our development objectives. We must revolutionise and we must innovate,” she said.

She explained that the Call Detail Records (CDR), provided an alternative type of spatial data that could add to, or augment routine data collections to introduce new opportunities in statistical data production; with relatively high level of accuracy, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

She said the project would explore new and innovative ways to address the data needs and challenges in the production of official statistics by exploiting the advancement of technology and its use, of our time, for Ghana’s transformation.

The Board Chair noted that the partnership would afford GSS the expertise and capacity to explore the full potential in the use of CDR to assist with the understanding of migration patterns within and between regions in Ghana.

She said it would inform policies in areas such as Conflict Prevention, Disaster Response and Humanitarian Aid, and Public Health.

She expressed her gratitude to Vodafone Foundation and Hewlett Foundation for committing resources to the project for the first two years and thanked the Ghana Statistical Service, the National Development Planning Commission, other public sector institutions and development partners for their contributions to the project.

Mr Andrew Dunnett, Director, Vodafone Group Foundation said the initiative would be useful to prevent the spread of communicable diseases during outbreaks.

He said for the past three years Vodafone took the initiative and was working on the legal frame work to commence the operation and eventually the inauguration of the steering committee.

He said the data provided by Vodafone was secured to prevent any third party from accessing the data; meaning that Flowminder a partner of the project would not have access to customer’s personal data, voice calls or messages sent.

He said Vodafone Foundation and Hewlett Foundation invested a total amount of Six Hundred and forty-four British Pounds (GBP 644,000) and was the only Telecommunication Company in the country to have embarked on such initiative to help prevent the spread of communicable diseases.