Forecasting and analysing macroeconomics data in the country is set to be much easier with the roll out of the Financial Programming for Macroeconomic Forecasting.
Ghana has been selected as one of six frontier economies to implement the programme.
It will provide evidence-based policy and decision making and enable stakeholder agencies and institutions to accurately forecast economic outcomes to inform dialogue and policy direction.
When completed, the models under the programme could, for instance, enable the country to simulate the financial and economic effects of international pacts such as the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
The Swiss government considers Ghana its priority assistance country, and, therefore selected it along with countries such as Nicaragua, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, with Ghana being the only country from Africa.
The Chargé d’Affaires of Switzerland in Ghana, Mr Michel Gottret, told the Daily Graphic after a workshop to build the capacity of stakeholders in the management of macroeconomic analysis and forecasting that the programme was part of the Swiss government’s technical assistance for Ghana to improve its macroeconomic analysis and forecasting.
“Achieving and maintaining macroeconomic stability is a fundamental role of any state. Hence, the financial programming, which is a quantitative framework for determining monetary and fiscal targets, will support the Ministry of Finance, Bank of Ghana and other key stakeholders to conduct prudent macroeconomic management.”
He said the model would help the country to translate economic development objectives into a coherent set of policies.
Mr Gottret explained that the Financial Programming would also help to develop different macroeconomic scenarios which would be simple to explain and hence well suited to kick-start discussions, gather interdisciplinary policy advice and bridge the discrepancies between technical facts and political needs.
Macroeconomist and Financial Sector Specialist at the Embassy of Switzerland, Mr Magnus Ebo Duncan, explained after the training session that the programme would assist the country to develop an effective excel-based forecasting tools for various indices such as employment, debt and monetary policy variables.
Mr Duncan said the programme, which would run for a pilot phase of three years, would enable participants who had been carefully selected from key institutions, agencies and ministries, to develop an economic statistics model unique to the country, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all approach of the past.
The programme will also assist the country to identify data inadequacies in the system, as well as needed data and how to use them.
“The participants will build the model for Ghana themselves and the project team will write the manual together with them. The model will be specific to the country with its own variables; it is not borrowed,” the head of economic statistics at the Switzerland Embassy said.
The 15 participants were drawn from the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Ghana, the National Development Planning Commission and the Ghana Statistical Service.