Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
UNICEF works with partners in Ghana to make data reliable and accessible
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) unit in the Ghana Country Office is broadly structured into two closely linked work streams: external and internal.
The external work stream aims to strengthen Ghana's external data environment to reduce separate, expensive data collection initiatives and ensure partners use reliable, accurate monitoring and evaluation systems to inform their own (and UNICEF’s) evidence-based programmes.
This involves strengthening routine monitoring systems to generate data and promoting the use of data and evaluation to inform government decision-making.
UNICEF's Monitoring and Evaluation team also provides technical support to national evaluations that generate data critical to its work in Ghana, such as the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey and the Demographic and Health Survey.
The internal work stream seeks to ensure that UNICEF has the right data, tools and capacities to design and implement evidence-based programmes. Through this work stream, the Monitoring and Evaluation team ensures that the country office has access to reliable, accurate analytical evidence and data to inform its programme design and implementation.
The unit also supports staff to have the capacity to commission, understand and use research findings for programming, and provides and maintains a strong programme monitoring system to track implementation progress against the achievement of results.
MICS is an international household survey programme developed by UNICEF to monitor the situation of children, women and men. Government institutions typically carry out the survey with technical and financial assistance from UNICEF and its partners.
Ghana has already conducted seven MICS surveys so far. MICS enables countries to produce statistically sound, internationally comparable estimates of a range of indicators in health, education, child protection, water and sanitation, and HIV/AIDS.
It also generates information for a range of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators and will be, along with other nationally representative household surveys, critically important for SDG reporting.
The 2017 report was launched in November 2018 and has been disseminated (Please check Resources or Publications for the MICS 7 Report).
The MICS implementing agency in Ghana, with support from UNICEF, is the Ghana Statistical Service.