For several years communicating government programmes and policies to the citizenry and soliciting for feedback has been an integral part of Governance. It forms a framework for national dialogue through which informed public opinion is shaped. It assists in public understanding and acceptance of national goals and the individual’s responsibilities for reaching these goals.
Its importance even in the current democratic dispensation cannot be overemphasized. It is no gain emphasizing the wisdom behind the saying that a well-informed citizenry can be trusted with their own Government. In Ghana the role that the media, the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) among other organizations have played over the years in ensuring access to Information cannot be overemphasized.
Today access to information is still priceless to good governance. Maybe in this era of media pluralism and information overload the emphasis should be placed on not just an informed citizenry but a well-informed Citizenry especially at a time when we are battling with misinformation and disinformation.
One organization that has also played an outstanding role to ensure that the citizenry has access to information on Government policies and programmes in Ghana over the years is the Information Services Department (ISD). The Information Services Department evolved from an organization established in the latter part of 1939 as a branch of the colonial Government dedicated to convey news on the Second World War.
This was done through the production of a weekly journal dubbed the Empire at War. After the war it was renamed the Public Relations Department then later The Gold Coast Government re organised the ISD into Department of Information as an effective Government information disseminating unit to bridge the communication gap between the government and the governed,
After the February 24 revolution in 1966 the Ministry of information and the Department of Information was merged to become the Central publicity agent of the Government.
The essence of the Information Services Department is to ensure management of the flow of information to the general public.
The Information Services Department has over the years become well known with the Yellow and Green Public Education van, since it has been the main medium for public education for the ISD especially in rural communities.
In an era of information overload and media pluralism and the emergence of several news channels with access to news sources the issue as to the relevance of the Information Services Department keep coming up. This is especially so when people see the public education vans as the only channel of communication to the ISD.
Quite recently at a budget hearing at the Ministry of Finance when the Ministry of Information took its turn, the New Head of the Office of the Head of Civil Service Dr. Evans Aggrey Darko remarked that taking inspiration from critical renaissance or ‘Sankofaism,’ implying using the past as a guide for planning into the future is priceless in every field of human endeavour.
It is said that one of the characteristics of a good service provider is to be flexible and adaptive to provide solutions that suit the contemporary needs of prospective clients. As an Information service provider spanning over 83 years that has been the test of the Information Services Department today to adapt to change to suit the time while taking inspiration from the past.
The ISD has, for a few years, been embarking on a transformation journey to provide a timely, authentic and reliable source of information that is multifaceted.
There is the consciousness that such Information service delivery should not just be credible but must be served with the necessary speed as a way of waging warfare against misinformation and disinformation that confronts us today.
This is even more crucial even more than ever when society has become very complex with a segment of Society’s elites glued into the Internet, iPads, iPhones whereas others especially in the hinterlands do not have access to some of these modern conveniences of assessing information and are sometimes cut off from national dialogue.
A communication strategy that is tailored at meeting different public categories is rather priceless rather than an idea of a one size fits all and that is the road that the Information Service is travelling on now.
Each passing moment throws in a new challenge of communicating efficiently as an important part of good governance. It is this drive that led to the unveiling of a new organizational structure for the Information Services Department with new functional divisions that focuses on strategic public education, public relations and access information that are engineered by research in a digital space.
For instance, for several years the Information Services Department has been responsible for staffing Government ministries, departments and agencies with public relations officers. Although the story about PR practice by ISD officers in the various organizations has been phenomenal, one challenge has been the practice where PROS are made to offer some kind of service that are miles apart from professional PR practice.
PR like most industries is evolving. It operates efficiently today with a well-developed plan in a digital space. As the ISD embarks on a transformation in a digital space an application referred to as the ‘Bonsu’ application has been introduced.
This allows the Public Relations Coordination Division of the ISD to collate, analyse and evaluate Public Relations activities of government programmes and projects in MDAS Regional Coordinating Councils and MDAS through this online reporting system for the attention of the sector minister and the Ministry of Information as a whole. This a vast departure of the manual system of reporting that was the practice years back.
This system also ensures the submission of PR work plans for it to be assessed with Key Performance Indicators. The practice where ISD PROS were made to practice anything and call it PR is gradually being nipped in the bud since there are KPI developed in a digital space at the Information services Department to assess PR officers from time to time.
Soliciting for feedback from the citizens about their opinion is an essential part of the work of the Information Services Department. For years this has been done manually as such its relevance now is far-fetched.
To ensure efficiency and reliable gathering of feedback, the Research section of the Information Services Department has been made a Division resourced to be able to conduct nationwide surveys on public opinions with regards to programmes, policies and initiatives of Government.
This is to ensure an empirical feedback from the citizenry about Government programmes and policies Data collection apps have been installed on official tablets for the entire 261 Metropolitan and District Information Officers. This is to help collect real time data for onward submission to the head office for analyses.
There is also a survey dashboard that analyses collected Data collected across the Country. In addition, there is also a technology that is used to monitor activities in the media space which serves as an important way for the Government to get feedback from the Citizenry to the Ministry of Information.
Today the Information Services Department has an ultra-modern newsroom with people trained on how to use technology to gather government news through the same Bonsu application that is used by the Public Relation Coordination and distribute news in a highly pluralistic media landscape.
Under the transformation programme there is a new Division called the Access to Information Division. This division has the mandate to train and deploy Right to Information Officers to ensure efficient implementation of the Right to Information Act to Ministries, Departments and Agencies. This Division has been equipped with modern equipment to enable the officers to provide up to date information in a timely manner.
As the world plunges into the digital age, the roles of technology in Information dissemination are more visible than ever. It is this that has prompted the ISD to consider digitalization.
The Information Services Department is exploring technologies by collaborating with organizations such as the Ghana Statistical Service to make ISD the preferred choice for Government Information as encapsulated in its new vision.
The ISD owes a great deal of gratitude to The Minister of Information for Information and Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Management Services Division of the Office of the Head of Civil Service for the assistance so far for the ISD transformation that is being embarked upon in a digital space.
It is appropriate to encourage organizations to count on ISD for all forms of communication needs to prevent them from working in the dark and also hope the government will give the Department all the needed support to make it more relevant in the midst of modernity.
By David Owusu-Amoah, Information Services Department
