The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) are developing a standardised national framework for measuring productivity, in a collaboration that officials say will fill a critical gap in how Ghana’s economic performance is assessed and how policy decisions, wage negotiations, and investment strategies are guided.
The initiative was discussed at a formal meeting between GSS technical staff and an MDPI delegation led by Director General Professor Elijah Yendaw, where both institutions outlined plans for the proposed National Productivity Metrics Framework and agreed on the data architecture needed to make it functional.
The framework is designed to measure three distinct dimensions of productivity: labour productivity, which tracks output generated per worker; capital productivity, which assesses the efficiency of physical and financial assets deployed in production; and multifactor productivity, which captures the combined contribution of all inputs to economic output. Together, the three metrics will provide a more granular and internationally comparable picture of how efficiently Ghana’s economy is converting its resources into growth.
Deputy Government Statistician Omar Seidu participated in the discussions alongside GSS technical staff, with the Service identified as the primary data supplier for the framework. GSS is expected to provide national accounts data, labour statistics, household and enterprise survey results, and price indices to support implementation and ensure the metrics are grounded in verified, current information.
Officials said the framework addresses a longstanding structural gap in Ghana’s economic reporting. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has identified low productivity growth linked to a stalled structural transformation as Ghana’s primary economic challenge, with heavy dependence on raw commodities requiring economic diversification and increased utilisation of value-added production across sectors. Without standardised productivity data, designing targeted policy responses to that challenge has been difficult.
GSS recommended that the framework be embedded within the National Statistical Development Strategy III (NSDS III) to ensure institutional continuity and alignment with Ghana’s broader statistical and development agenda. It also recommended prioritising data mapping and quality assessments before the framework goes live, to guarantee that outputs are reliable and comparable with international standards.
MDPI has been engaging major public institutions including the Bank of Ghana, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), the National Lotteries Authority (NLA), and the Ghana Shippers Authority on tailored productivity training programmes, as part of a broader institutional push to address skills mismatches that undermine national competitiveness. The new measurement framework would provide a statistical foundation to track whether those interventions are delivering measurable productivity gains over time.
For the private sector, standardised productivity data would offer a more objective basis for wage negotiations, currently conducted largely without reference to sector-specific output benchmarks. For government, the framework would strengthen the evidence base for decisions about infrastructure allocation, skills investment, and sector prioritisation within Ghana’s economic recovery and growth agenda.
