The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has a long history of conducting successful household surveys on a range of topics, dating back to 1987 when Sistemas Integrales helped to implement the country's very first Living Standards Measurement Survey. The GSS has even begun to move forward from the donor-driver model of survey scheduling which is usual in developing economies; its Living Standards Surveys (GLSS) have been conducted regularly and the 5th GLSS was organised and implemented entirely with the country's own resources.

To establish whether the various surveys being conducted by the GSS met the needs of Ghana's own development planning and of international initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals, a full review was commissioned by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), with support from the World Bank and the German development agency. Sistemas Integrales' consultant found considerable duplication in the indicators being measured by different surveys, but also identified some information gaps and a mis-match between the periodicity of the donor-driven surveys and the Ghanaian government's own planning cycle. He prepared a 'road-map' which links together census and survey activity over the next 16 years, with a new cycle of surveys tied in with the government's four-year plans.

A pilot project, the Ghana Agricultural Production Survey (GAPS), has already begun; GAPS will provide the first systematic, reliable data on agriculture and livestock for 25 years. The review also proposed merging two separate surveys (GLSS and MICS), and launching new surveys, of businesses and of employment. 

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