Policy think tank, the Africa Policy Lens (APL), has launched two national tracking tools—the Ghana Wellbeing Tracker and the Governance Trust Barometer—to assess governance performance and the economic realities of citizens.

The two barometers, unveiled at a ceremony in Accra alongside APL’s maiden reports, are designed to provide data-driven insights into institutional trust and household wellbeing, using citizen-centred methodologies.

Governance Trust Barometer

According to APL, the Governance Trust Barometer (GTB) captures the lived experiences of citizens to evaluate how governance is perceived in practice.

“The APL’s Governance and Trust Barometer (GTB) offers a systematic, citizen-centred evaluation of governance quality and institutional trust in Ghana,” said Dr. Hayford Ayerakwa, Director of Research.

“It is grounded in the lived experiences and perceptions of citizens, capturing how individuals assess the performance, responsiveness, and credibility of the state across core governance functions.”

He added that the approach moves beyond formal institutional structures to examine how governance is experienced in everyday life.

The GTB combines eight key domains—institutional trust, perceptions of corruption, accountability and the rule of law, government communication, citizen voice, electoral confidence, political security, and civic participation—into a single index scaled from 0 to 100.

APL said the framework reflects the complexity of governance, noting that democratic quality is shaped not only by elections but also by continuous interaction between citizens and state institutions.

Ghana Wellbeing Tracker

The Ghana Wellbeing Tracker focuses on how households experience economic conditions.

“The Ghana Wellbeing Tracker offers a citizen-centred evaluation of prevailing economic conditions, focusing on how households navigate day-to-day realities,” Dr. Hayford Ayerakwa, said.

“It examines key dimensions such as cost-of-living pressures, employment conditions, income dynamics, business activity, and household financial resilience.”

These indicators are aggregated into the Ghana Wellbeing Index (GWI), a composite score ranging from 0 to 100, providing an overall picture of economic wellbeing across the country.

APL said the two tools are expected to support policy analysis and contribute to more responsive governance by aligning decision-making with the lived realities of citizens.