Report on the national assessment of labour migration policies, legislation, practices, and structures in GHANA

Data is essential for understanding the dynamics of and managing labour migration in Ghana. However, there is very limited national statistics on labour migration, and there is no national database upon which to build or update. The ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) with some mandate on migration do not keep figures on the number of labour migrants into or out of the country, except for the Labour Department of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW), which established a manual database in January 2008. Again, it is almost impossible to get access to data and in a form that lends itself to analyses. However, some data exist on migration in general. The common sources of migration data are: the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), and studies conducted by foreign missions. The data as collected by these bodies are often defined to suit their purposes and so are not comparable. There is often very little disaggregation of data and the GLSS data focuses on internal migration rather than international migration.