How citizen voices are shaping public services in Ghana

Led by the Ghana Statistical Service, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IIASA, the recently published paper describes a pioneering pilot project in two Ghanaian districts, Ga East and Suhum. The goal: to test whether citizen data could supplement official statistics in assessing people’s satisfaction with healthcare, education, and government services, such as government-issued identification documents and services for the civil registration of life events, including births and deaths – an essential metric under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 16.6.2: satisfaction with public services.  

At the heart of the project was a smartphone app co-developed with community members, national and local government officials, and statisticians. The app’s design was shaped through participatory workshops and tailored for inclusivity right from the start. For example, the app was made available in English, Twi, and Ga, reflecting the primary languages spoken in the pilot districts. In addition, the app includes features such as a text reader and a sign language interpreter. To account for potential literacy barriers, it also has a voice recording option for answering the survey in the three available languages. This approach not only improved usability but also helped build local trust and a sense of ownership over the data being collected.

Residents from the two districts consequently used the application to submit feedback in their preferred language, through text, voice recordings, or sign language, ensuring participation across a broad cross-section of the population. For those without smartphones or internet access, an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) option – a basic phone feature that works like text messaging – was made available via basic mobile phones.

“This is the first time that a UN agency and a national statistical office have worked together to launch an initiative like this,” notes coauthor Mariana Neves, Governance Statistics Specialist at the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance. “Our study represents a different way of working where national statistical offices can use citizen data initiatives to launch surveys with a more bottom-up perspective, allowing them to take control of their own data collection. This is particularly important for statistical offices that require information on specific population groups.”

Significantly, the initiative captured a higher proportion of responses from people with disabilities than official statistics typically do, thanks to the inclusive design and active community outreach. This not only produced more granular data but also fostered stronger trust and transparency between citizens and institutions.

“Citizen data is not just about filling gaps in statistics,” says coauthor Omar Seidu, social statistician at the Ghana Statistical Service. “It’s about recognizing that communities themselves hold the knowledge we need to design better public services – by providing a mechanism that allows their voices to be heard in addressing matters that affect them, we ensure that no one is left behind. This initiative shows what’s possible when citizens are not just data points, but data producers.”

The lessons from Ghana will be highlighted at the upcoming Internet Governance Forum during a session titled, Empowering Marginalized Communities: Harnessing Internet-Powered Citizen Data for Inclusive Public Services, scheduled for 24 June 2025 from 09:45 to 10:45 CEST. Organized by the Ghana Statistical Service, UNDP, IIASA, and the UN Statistics Division, the session will explore how these citizen-led data methods can be expanded and adopted globally.

The aim is to scale up this citizen data experience for national implementation in Ghana and adapt it for use in other countries seeking citizen data approaches to public service monitoring. To make this possible, the research team is actively pursuing partnerships with funding organizations interested in supporting innovative, citizen-driven data solutions that strengthen governance and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.

“As we find ourselves in the final stretch toward achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, this study delivers a clear message: engaging citizens directly in data collection is not only possible, but also essential for responsive, inclusive governance,” concludes lead author Dilek Fraisl, a senior researcher in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability (NODES) Research Group of the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program.

This work was supported by the Government of Norway and the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101131696 (CROPS).

Reference

Fraisl, D., Neves, M., Seidu, O., Kwesi Darpoh, C., Basnyat, A., Usheva, F., Tungbani, B., Ankamah, D., See, L., Gadgil, A. (2025). Leveraging citizen data to improve public services and measure progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 16. Sustainable Development DOI: 10.1002/sd.3441