Dr. Enock Katere, a lecturer at the College for Community Development (CCOD), has called for a strategic overhaul of Ghana’s public sector approach to data use, warning that the country risks remaining “data-rich but insight-poor” if it fails to train civil servants in data interpretation and adaptive decision-making.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani, Dr. Katere, also an organisational development expert, said while government agencies routinely gather vast amounts of data, little of it is transformed into actionable strategies—particularly during emergencies like floods or pandemics.
“We are collecting the right data but failing to convert it into timely, impactful decisions,” he noted. “This is not just a technical lapse; it is a governance shortfall.”
Dr. Katere argued that Ghana’s governance architecture is built for predictability rather than complexity, making it ineffective in responding to dynamic crises such as economic shocks, public health emergencies, and climate threats. He cited the example of annual urban flooding despite the availability of hydrological data and satellite imagery from agencies like NADMO and GMet.
“We should be using this information to model real-time flood risks and develop adaptive management plans. Instead, we react year after year with the same uncoordinated responses,” he said.
To close this gap, Dr. Katere advocated for robust investments in capacity building for public servants, enabling them to analyse, synthesize, and apply data across agencies. This would improve inter-agency collaboration and create a more responsive and future-ready governance system.
He urged a move from static data storage systems to real-time, decision-intelligence frameworks that simulate various scenarios and guide resource allocation before disasters strike.
“Our public sector must evolve from a reactive bureaucracy into an adaptive system—one that values foresight over hindsight and insight over assumption,” Dr. Katere concluded.
