Mr. Dan Botwe, the Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development has called for the review and implementation of policies for the aged to create a safety net, especially for persons who retire from the informal sector without pension plan.
With the broad-based population pyramid being altered to show signs of aging, he said such a policy was worth prioritising, especially when almost 80 per cent of the Ghanaian labour force were engaged in the informal sector.
“Ageing comes along with challenges of poor health, inadequate social and economic support,” he noted.
While delivering his keynote address at the National Census Policy Dialogue, the Minister observed that planning at various level of the public sector over the years tended to overlook the unique characteristics of the population.
“It appears we have not done too well in paying critical attention to the needs of some of these vulnerable or disadvantaged segments of the population and we need to change our attitudes in this direction,” he said.
Government in 2010 promulgated a National Aging Policy (NAP) to ensure the well-being of older adults.
Since its passage, however, the NAP is yet to be funded and implemented.
The Minister also emphasised the need to also measure the extent to, which development projects and policies aimed at enhancing the quality of lives had achieved their objectives and “this requires relevant data.”
Dr. Kodjo Mensah-Abrampa, Director-General of National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), said for many years, the NDPC depended on estimates and projection to plan and “sometimes not all the facts really matched.”
The availability of latest census data, he said, was, therefore, timely for his outfit which had a task of advising government on strategic development plans, conducting studies to ensure optimal utilisation of resources and the facilitation, monitoring and evaluation of projects and programmes.
He said the Commission was in the long-term looking at enhancing the manufacturing and industrial sector, which relatively had a lower growth rate compared to agriculture and service sectors.
Dr Leticia Adelaide Appiah, Executive Director, National Population Council (NPC), said effective population management should not be regarded as a means of denying people the right to make decision but rather making them efficient for the wellbeing of all.
In that regard, she said census data needed to be communicated in a compelling manner using the data storytelling skill.
“Because of the psychological power of storytelling, we can use pure data to communicate the need for action,” she said.