"Institutions can continue monitoring mandate-specific indicators" – NDPC Boss

The Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Audrey Smock Amoah, has assured Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that they can continue to monitor additional indicators tailored to their respective mandates, even as Ghana adopts a common national results framework to track implementation of the Medium-Term National Development Policy Framework (MTNDPF) 2026–2029.

She made the remarks during a validation meeting on the Results Framework for the Resetting Ghana Agenda: Creating Jobs, Ensuring Accountability and Promoting Shared Prosperity Policy Framework (2026–2029), held in Accra on Monday, July 13, 2026.

The meeting, organised by the NDPC in collaboration with UNICEF, brought together representatives from MDAs, development partners, academia and planning professionals to review and validate the indicators, baselines and targets that will be used to assess Ghana's development performance over the next four years.

Addressing participants, Dr Amoah explained that the development of a results framework is a critical step after the preparation of a national policy framework, as it provides the basis for measuring progress towards the country's development goals.

She said the validation exercise was intended to give stakeholders the opportunity to scrutinise and endorse the proposed indicators, targets and baselines that would guide national performance monitoring throughout the implementation period.

According to Dr Amoah, the framework includes a set of core indicators that all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) will be required to report on to ensure consistency in monitoring and evaluation across the country.

However, she stressed that this would not prevent individual institutions from tracking additional indicators relevant to their specific responsibilities.

"Institutions can continue to monitor additional indicators specific to their mandates," Dr Amoah stated, explaining that these indicators should be aligned with the Medium-Term Development Plans previously submitted to the Commission for certification.

She noted that this approach would enable government institutions to maintain oversight of sector-specific priorities while contributing to a unified national monitoring and evaluation system.

Dr Amoah further indicated that the validation process would strengthen the quality of the results framework by ensuring that the selected indicators are relevant, measurable and capable of providing an accurate assessment of national development progress.

The Director for Monitoring and Evaluation at the NDPC, Mr Bright Atiase, also underscored the importance of developing a practical and measurable framework.

He described the results framework as both a roadmap and a scorecard for assessing the implementation of development policies, programmes and projects.

He explained that the Commission is shifting its emphasis from input and output indicators to outcome and impact indicators, retaining only essential output indicators that directly support effective performance measurement.

Mr Atiase urged institutions to avoid including indicators they lacked the capacity to measure, stressing that realistic targets, supported by credible baselines and reliable data sources, would improve accountability and policy implementation.

Also addressing the meeting, UNICEF representative Dr Felix Addo-Yobo highlighted the need for timely, reliable and disaggregated data to support evidence-based planning.

He cautioned that relying solely on national averages could mask inequalities and leave vulnerable populations underserved.

The validation meeting forms part of NDPC's efforts to finalise a robust results framework that will guide monitoring, evaluation and reporting under Ghana's Medium-Term National Development Policy Framework for the 2026–2029 period.

Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith