In 2015, Ghana adopted the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and indicators framework, for monitoring its progress towards the goals.  

The ethos of the SDGs is to leave no one behind. So there is a need for National Statistics Institutes and other data collectors to harness the data revolution so produce can produce more granular and timely quality data that can truly drive development outcomes.

There are three main traditional source of data production in Ghana. They are:

Censuses: This is the total count of people and relevant information and measures the population characteristics of the country, fertility, mortality, migration, marital status, literacy and education, economic activity status, occupation, employment; Information Communication Technology (ICT), disability, agricultural activities and housing conditions of the district

Survey: Like the census, surveys are more frequent sample exercises that also measure the same variables like the census.

Administrative: This refers to information collected "usually by government, for some administrative purpose (e.g., keeping track of the population eligible for certain benefits, paying doctors or hospitals)”.

The three priority areas for data revolution are:

1. Filling data gaps. Where there are no existing data sources available.
2. Encouraging data use. Making data more open for reuse, creating a better communication and visibility of data, ensuring that data connect to decision-making and meet user needs and ensuring that data are interoperable.
3. Strengthen entire data ecosystem. This is to identify key players in the data production and how their operations can be strengthened. These include their capacities (statistical capacity), processes (monitoring, accountability and transparency), policies (data release, privacy and security) and infrastructure (telecoms, data boarders, data analytics and visualisations, data).

There is a need to ride on the back of these three priority areas to harness data for SDGs, Agenda 2063 and other national priorities to shine a light on marginalized groups so they are counted in our statistics. This will help policy makers and influencers target and priories resources.

Apart from the traditional way of producing data, there is a need to see other innovative way of generating data and also explore new source and type of data so that the gaps identified in the usual way of data production can be filled. Hence the need to explore the area of satellite and earth imagery – again, explain what this means.

In view of this, Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in collaboration with Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) and six (6) other institutions that work with satellite imagery — such as Center for Remote Sensing and Geospatial Information System (CERGIS) at the University of Ghana who are using Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) which provide hands-on training on the management of the data and approaches for applying application algorithms to produce relevant products for decision making.

Specifically, using state-of-the-art, satellite-based earth monitoring, imaging and geospatial mapping data to predict models and science applications to help improve environmental decision-making.

In other to have a clearer view on the open data cube, two main use cases have been development to showcase where Ghana stands on the open data cube. These use cases are:

1. Water Detection
2. Urbanization

Water Detection

For 9 years Ghana has been experiencing illegal mining along major water bodies which serves as a main source of drinking and use water for most of the population.

This illegal mining commonly referred to as “GALAMSY” has really cause a lot of pollution to this water bodies and it has affected the quality of the water for its users.  Illegal mining has also increased the cost of water treatment which is under the control of Ghana water company.

The Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC)is one-way Ghana is using to detect the water quality for a period over time.

Image 1 (below) is a new Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) analysis focused on illegal mining activity in Ghana. As the image shows this issue is quite prolific in Ghana and it is causing a number of issues including deforestation and water contamination.

Using data on known locations of illegal mining activity, it is our goal to build Ghana data and knowledge capacity by using the Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) to generate these products, and many others, in order to shine a light on these issues, track changes over time and evaluate the impact of policy and other influencers action.

Image 1: Illegal mining activity in Ghana

We used several ARDC algorithms to investigate an area in southwest Ghana along the Ankobra River.

One additional observation was that standard water quality algorithms (used to detect sediment levels) were not very effective for the region since the water was so dirty that it appears as bare soil in most images. In addition, standard water detection algorithms also failed to detect pooling water and parts of the river for many scenes.

Urbanization

Urbanization has been one of the most significant processes in transforming all societies, particularly since the early twentieth century. Everywhere, cities are synonymous with modernization, economic development, social progress and cultural innovation.

However, the nature of urban development, particularly in sub- Saharan Africa, including Ghana, seriously constrains the productivity of cities and hence reduces the extent to which they can effectively

perform their role in national development.

Lack of adequate infrastructure and service provision, poverty, pollution, overcrowding, congestion and shortage of affordable housing are undermining the traditional civilizing influence of cities (Uwe 2003).

Ghana has experienced a very rapid rate of urban growth since the middle of the twentieth century. The proportion of the country’s population living in towns, as officially defined (any settlement with at least 5,000 people), and has increased rapidly over the years: it rose from 9 per cent in 1931 to 31.3 per cent in 1984 and 43.8 per cent in 2000.

Modern urbanization in Ghana, however, is focused mainly on Accra– Tema and two other urban nuclei in the country. Accra is a primate city not only in terms of the size of its population; its primacy also manifests in every respect: political, economic and cultural.

There has been a 30.3 per cent increase in population from 2000 to 2010 (24,658,823 million) and 20.09 per cent increase in population projection from 2010 to 2018 (29,614,337 million).

This rapid increase in population results in a greater increase in urbanization which has a long-term effect on the forest situation leading to the depletion of Ghana’s forest. Therefore, there is a need to use satellite imagery to detect the effect of urbanization on the country’s forest. This will inform policy decision on how to control the extent of deforestation.

The effect of the above cannot be just presented in figures; therefore, there is a need to see how best satellite imagery can be used to report on.

There are about 12 or more indicators in the SDGs framework that can reported on using Satellite imagery. These include:

1. 6.6.1: Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time
2. 14.5.1: Coverage of protected areas in relation to marine areas
3. 15.1.2: Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type
4. 15.3.1:  Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area  

May we all as players in the data ecosystem continue to play our part helping the exploration of new ways of producing data to not only help Ghana report adequately on SDGs globally, but progress as a country.

Kindly visit https://sustainabledevelopment-ghana.github.io/ for information on the status of Ghana’s progress towards the global SDGs.

By: VICTOR OWUSU BOATENG

SDGs SECRETARIAT

GHANA STATISTICAL SERVICE