The problem
Ghana has never invested more in young people: NAP is scaling to 100,000 apprentices in 2026, Adwumawura has trained 10,887 entrepreneurs, One Million Coders has 141,954 registrations. Yet the Ministry’s own 2026–2029 Medium‑Term Development Plan names an “inadequate and unreliable database on youth programmes” and an “absence of real‑time data on youth”.
The Youth Tracker reports what agencies submit; today NYA submits totals collected on paper, weeks late. A dashboard cannot be more truthful than the operational system beneath it — and NYA does not have that system. That is the gap, and it sits entirely within NYA’s Act 939 mandate.
The proposal
The operational system that runs NYA’s own programmes end to end — application, verification, training, field delivery, disbursement, placement, verified outcome — and publishes trustworthy, real‑time data into the National Youth Tracker.
What it is not. Not another youth app, job board (GLMIS exists), identity system (NIA), certification authority (CTVET) or dashboard (the Tracker) — and not the cross‑agency layer, which is the Ministry’s to extend later on a pattern NYA will have proven.
How it works
- A verification ladder, V0–V3. Nobody is paid below officer‑attested; no cash below NIA‑verified. A young person without a Ghana Card becomes a case, not a rejection.
- Offline field attendance on an officer’s phone gates the allowance; sync conflicts are resolved on screen, never silently overwritten.
- Disbursement control. Eligibility gate → exception queue → maker, checker and approver (three people) → payment file → reconciliation per beneficiary and to GIFMIS → recovery. At 100,000 apprentices, preventing low single‑digit leakage pays for the platform [estimate — a sensitivity, not a finding].
- Evidence levels A–D on every outcome. Headline figures count third‑party (C) and system‑linked (D) confirmation only.
Built to comply from day one
Data Protection Commission registration before go‑live; designed to the Data Protection Bill 2025; Cybersecurity Act 2020 with an early CSA determination on critical‑infrastructure status; NITA e‑GIF; GHANEPS procurement; no automated adverse decision, ever.
If we do nothing
NYA keeps submitting paper totals weeks late, the Tracker keeps reporting what it is given, and the question the Chief Executive will be asked next year — what percentage of the young people we supported can we prove are still working? — stays unanswerable.
Verified Conversion Rate: the share of young people who started an NYA programme and, twelve months after completion, hold a verified sustained outcome — a job, an operating business, continued training or sustained service.
Reported at evidence level C or D only, with the Outcome Verification Rate published beside it. NYA must supply three baselines: current outcome verification rate, application‑to‑selection turnaround, attendance completeness. If the third‑party‑verified share cannot be produced today, that is the finding.
The decision requested
Not approval to build a national platform. Approve a 10‑week Youth Delivery Discovery, then a 90‑day single‑programme proof — NAP, one region, ten districts: register and ladder, offline attendance, the eligibility gate, maker‑checker, one real payment cycle, a district dashboard. Nothing else. Gate: did attendance quality and payment exceptions beat the paper baseline measurably? If not, stop.
GHS 720,000 – 1,280,000 [estimate]After the gates: pilot build and run ≈ GHS 5.4–11.0m over twelve months and three regions [estimate], competitively tendered on GHANEPS. Recurrent from year 2 ≈ GHS 2.5–5.0m a year [estimate] — the number that needs institutional commitment; without it the platform dies in year three.
What the discovery delivers
Verified inventory and process maps · measured baselines · written boundaries with MYDE (Tracker) and the Labour Department (GLMIS) · DPIA and CSA determination · NIA terms in writing · build‑versus‑adapt evaluation · a prototype tested with real district officers · a costed roadmap with the year 2–5 recurrent line · a procurement strategy under Act 914.
A roadmap with gates that can fail
Weeks 0–10 discovery → days 0–90 proof → months 5–12 field operations, outcomes, integrations in strict order (NIA first) and independent evaluation → year 2 national coverage → year 3 cross‑agency extension, when the Ministry decides. Only Phase 0 is approved now.
What we need from NYA now
Three numbers (the baselines above). Five conversations — MYDE on the Tracker boundary, the Labour Department on GLMIS, NIA on terms, the World Bank on a successor jobs‑and‑skills operation, the CSA on CII designation. One full‑time, permanent NYA product owner — if there is no answer, that is the first thing to solve.