Journalists Urged To Disseminate Information On GLSS-6

Mr Stephen Amoah, in charge of Co-ordination and Capacity Building, Ghana Statistical Service, has called on journalists to assist the service to disseminate information on the findings of the Ghana Living Standards Survey Round Six (GLSS-6) report. He said the survey findings would be meaningless if the public and policy makers were not adequately informed about the objectives and findings of the survey. Mr Amoah said this at the opening of a two-day media training workshop in Cape Coast on Thursday for 20 journalists drawn from the Volta, Western and Central regions. The workshop, organised by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) was prior to the dissemination of the key findings from the GLSS-6 report. Mr Amoah explained that Ghana living Standards Survey is a nation-wide household survey which provides information in assessing the living conditions in the households. He said GLSS- 6 would provide a wealth of information which, in no doubt, would provide a benchmark data for policy planners, including the district assemblies. Mr Amoah said it would also aid policy makers to analyse the impact of their decisions on the living conditions of individuals and identify vulnerable groups for government assistance. He said the GLSS has emerged as one of the most important tools in the welfare monitoring system of the country, adding that Ghana had successfully conducted five rounds of living standards surveys since 1987, and that the second, third, fourth and fifth rounds were carried out in 1988, 1991/92, 1998/99 and 2005/06 respectively. Mr Amoah said the sixth round of GLSS started in October 2012 and ended in September 2013, adding that the previous rounds of GLSS had always had specific focus whiles the GLSS-6 focused on labour force survey module with additional sections on child labour and household services. He said information collected was on the demographic characteristics of the population, health and fertility, household income, consumption and expenditure patterns, prices of consumer items and household agricultural production. Others are non-farm household enterprises, household asset ownership, employment and time use, housing and house conditions of households and household financial service. Mr Amoah said the sample survey was made up of 1,200 enumeration areas with an enumeration area population of between 450/750 and that data was collected from a nationally representative sample of 18,000 households. He said data collection involved 30 teams and the field work lasted 12 months which was divided into 10 cycles of 35 days in which 1,800 households were visited in each cycle. The participants were taken through the Background of the GLSS, Education and Health, Employment, Housing and Housing Conditions, Child Labour and Poverty Profile.