GINKS Trains Civil Servants in Evidence-Informed Policy Making
8/11/ 2015
| Mrs Dei-Tumi (seated 2nd left), Mr Inusah (seated 2nd right) with the course participants and facilitators |
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A training programme aimed at building the capacity of middle level staff in the Civil Service in Evidence-Informed Policy Making (EIPM), has been opened at the Civil Service Training Centre (CSTC) in Accra, yesterday.
EIPM is a development technique that seeks to equip policymakers with requisite skills to enable them use research evidence in policymaking. It attempts to feel the gap between policymakers and researchers.
EIPM is within the framework of the VakaYiko consortium, led by International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (inasp), of which Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), Human Science Research Council (HSRC), Zimbabwe Evidence Informed Policy Network (ZeipNET) and Overseas Development Institute (ODI) are partners. |
The 25 participants, who are attending the 10-day course, are drawn from Ministries, Departments and Agencies within the Public Service. The course, the second to be organized by GINKS, covers four broad areas— Introduction to Evidence-Informed Policymaking, a complete search strategy, assessing evidence and communicating evidence.
The Principal of the Civil Service Training Centre (CSTC), Mrs Dora Dei-Tumi, who opened the course, acknowledged that Civil Servants did not have enough knowledge on how to search for credible information and communicate it.
Hence, she said, the EIPM course would help participants to research and collect credible information that would inform policies submitted to cabinet. “The quality of information submitted to cabinet brings out the quality of policies the government of the day will formulate,” Mrs Dei-Tumi added.
She said the core function of the Civil Service was to provide policy option for government, adding that the CSTC was therefore taking advantage of GINKS’s support to train civil servants to be able to give information that speaks to the needs of government policies.
Mrs Dei-Tumi noted that the second batch of trainees was selected from the same institutions the first batch of trainees came from so that the two could transmit the knowledge gain to their subordinates.
The Executive Secretary of GINKS, Mr Ibrahim Inusah, said industry players would be invited to share their experiences with the course participants. He mentioned Dr Grace Bediako, former Government Statistician, Dr Nina Chachu, Secretary to Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH), who is also a Librarian at Aseshi University, Dr Naalamle Amissah, College of Basic and Applied Sciences (CBAS), University of Ghana and Prof. A. A. Alemna, Department of Information Studies, University of Ghana.
He said the course was structured in way that would make it easy for participants to better understand how to access, analyse and use research information.
Source: ISD (Jotie N. Sule)
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