PhD in Social Statistics from the University of Southampton (UK) and a Graduate Diploma in Population Studies from the University of Ghana, Legon.

Dr. Philomena Efua Nyarko has wide-ranging experience in teaching and research and has provided technical advice and strategic direction to several public and private sector institutions.  She holds a PhD in Social Statistics from the University of Southampton (UK) and a Graduate Diploma in Population Studies from the University of Ghana, Legon. She served as the Government Statistician and Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) from 2012 to 2016 and during this period, she was responsible for the efficient supervision and coordination of the technical and administrative activities of the GSS. She was also responsible for coordinating the production and dissemination of statistical information within the National Statistical System and advising Government on all matters relating to statistics.  She had previously served as the Deputy Government Statistician for Operations and as Acting Government Statistician at the GSS from August 2010 to April 2013. As Deputy Government Statistician, she had the responsibility of providing professional leadership and direction to the operational divisions/units of the GSS while ensuring adherence to international standards and the harmonization of the statistics produced across sectors. She also supervised the successful implementation of several statistical research projects and the publication of many statistical reports.  In addition, she supervised the structural reform and capacity enhancement of the GSS as well as the strengthening of the National Statistical System in the production and dissemination of official statistics. She oversaw the preparation of the second phase of Ghana’s National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS 2017-2021) and the development of the Strategic Plan for the improvement of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System in Ghana (2016-2020).

From 2001 to 2010, she was a full time Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in technical demography, basic statistics and advanced quantitative analysis at the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. She also worked on the Population Council’s FRONTIERS in Reproductive Health Program where she provided technical assistance to Ghanaian partner organizations to undertake operations research to improve reproductive health service delivery in the country.

She had previously worked with the Ghana Statistical Service as a Statistician, Senior Statistician and Principal Statistician from 1987 to 1996 and with the Navrongo Health Research Centre as a Postdoctoral Mellon Fellow from 1999-2001. Her work at the GSS involved planning and implementing statistical surveys, preparing statistical reports, and disseminating research findings to guide policies and programmes. At the Navrongo Health Research Centre, she was the head of the Demographic Surveillance System (a longitudinal population registration system) with the overall responsibility of managing and supervising field operations, analysing and disseminating data and providing statistical and demographic support to other units within the Health Centre.

She is currently a Research Consultant and has, since her retirement from the GSS in November 2016, undertaken different consultancy assignments for various organizations, including UN Women, the African Development Bank (AfDB), Expertise France and the African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Commission for Africa (UNECA).

She has served on several national and international Boards/Councils and Committees.  She has supervised many postgraduate theses and also served as Reviewer for a number of academic journals and as Assessor for several research proposals submitted to external Research Councils/Funding Agencies. Furthermore, she has served as an External Examiner for postgraduate students, and as a Discussant at a number of international conferences. She is presently a Member of the Technical Working Group of the “African Health Stats” (an Online Health Data Platform), a Member of the Expert Group on the Regional Report of the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI), and Vice-Chair of the Board of the Africa Digital Rights Hub.