The establishment of a Data Desk at Parliament is making significant gains, shaping parliamentary discourse on policy, Mr Victor Owusu, a Senior Statistician/Demographer at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), said on Friday. The desk was set up by the GSS to make data readily available to the Members of Parliament (MPs) and to guide policy formulation and direction. 'Now the number of MPs who speak on policy on the floor of the House without having data to back their arguments have limited,' Mr Owusu stated when facilitating a capacity-building workshop for Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) and the media in Tamale. He commended Mr Kingsford Alban Sumana Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament, for his interest and passion in data collection, management and use, and called on the MPs to capitalise and access the desk for data use and to guide policy formulation. The CDD-Ghana's two-day workshop was attended by policy actors, CSOs and the media, selected from its Evidence for Development (E4D) project impleme ntation districts in the country. It sought to reflect on the current state of evidence use in policy and practice and to identify lessons learned to advance the institutionalisation of evidence-informed decision-making practices at the local levels. The CDD-Ghana, with support from Hewlett Foundation, implemented the E4D project from 2019 to 2021 to strengthen the capacity of government policy actors in evidence-informed policy making to improve social development outcomes. The project also seeks to motivate government policy actors to access and use the best available data and evidence to inform policies and programme implementation at the sub-national and district levels. Mr Mohammed Awal, Research Manager, Social Accountability and SDGs, CDD-Ghana, said data remained essential for development, however, CBOs and the media must be mindful of how they collect and interpret data in order not to segregate fuel conflicts. He called on the CSOs and media to inspire citizens to actively participate in the de cision-making process and planning, to drive local development. That would also build on, and strengthen local government systems, structures and sub-structures, and thereby translate into progressive development at the local and community levels. Mr Awal said until citizens showed interest and participated in the decision-making process, it would be difficult for the local government structures and sub-structures to function, as enjoined by the 1992 Constitution. He said the assembly sub-structures such as the area, zonal, town and urban councils ought to be empowered and strengthened to function effectively. He took the participants through the local government concept and structures and expressed worry that some of the sub-structures of the district assemblies were not functioning while others did not even exist. He, therefore, called for increased awareness creation by the media and CSOs to sensitise citizens on the need to participate in decision-making and planning, in their advocacy campaigns. S ource : Ghana News Agency