The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) are collaborating to develop a Ghana National Evidence and Gap Map, a digital platform aimed at improving access to research and evaluation evidence for national development planning.

The two institutions held a meeting on 13 July 2026, to review progress on the initiative and agree on the next steps towards its implementation.

A representative of ICED, Clarice Panyin Nyan, said the meeting was to strengthen the partnership between both institutions and coordinate efforts towards developing the evidence map.

She explained that while NDPC is leading the initiative with support from ICED’s research team, other institutions, including the Ghana Statistical Service and the Parliamentary Research Department, are expected to contribute to the development and implementation of the platform.

President and Chief Executive Officer of ICED, Dr David Sarfo Ameyaw, said the project followed a request from NDPC for support in cataloguing interventions contained in Ghana’s national development plan.

He said the exercise covers key sectors including social protection and poverty reduction, agriculture and food security, youth employment, education, healthcare delivery, infrastructure, governance, transparency and the environment.

“Now that we have got this framework, the question is: Which areas do we have evidence for?” Dr Ameyaw said.

He explained that the platform will consolidate evaluations, end-of-project reports and academic research currently scattered across different institutions and websites into one regularly updated database.

According to him, the evidence map will enable policymakers, government officials and Members of Parliament to access analysed research findings easily, with artificial intelligence tools supporting the processing and presentation of information.

The Director-General of NDPC, Dr Audrey Smock Amoah, proposed that the interventions captured under the initiative be aligned with the five thematic areas of Ghana’s national development policy framework.

These include economic development; social development; environment, infrastructure and spatial development; governance and institutional development; and international relations.

Dr Amoah said aligning the evidence map with the framework would make it easier to integrate the platform into national development planning.

She added that NDPC’s work on monitoring and evaluation, including reporting on Ghana’s Sustainable Development Goals and Voluntary National Reviews, could also contribute to the initiative.

Dr Amoah said the partnership supports efforts to promote evidence-based decision-making across government, adding that NDPC has also been engaging academic institutions to strengthen the use of research in policymaking.