Ghana’s New MSME Index Will Survey 5,000 Firms — But Will Informal Businesses Be Counted?
Ghana's new MSME Development Index will survey over 5,000 businesses. Nukunya examines informality, conflicting establishment counts, sampling quality and the January 2027 reporting target.
Ghana is preparing its first recurring national index of micro, small and medium-sized enterprise performance, with more than 5,000 businesses to be surveyed across all 16 regions. The initiative could improve lending and policy decisions, but a closer examination of Ghana’s business census reveals an important question: which enterprises will be counted, and will the index adequately capture the vast informal economy?
ACCRA — Development Bank Ghana (DBG) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) have launched the MSMEs Development Index, known as DBG-GSS MDex, following a memorandum of understanding signed on 8 September. More than 100 trained enumerators are expected to carry out fieldwork in October and November 2026, with the first report scheduled for the end of January 2027 and annual updates planned thereafter.
What is new?
Fresh accounts of the launch clarify that the project is intended to be a recurring annual index, not a one-off business survey. DBG is responsible for strategic leadership, financing and stakeholder coordination; GSS will lead survey design, fieldwork, analysis and reporting. The project combines responses from business owners with other indicators covering profitability, finance, digital adoption, governance, resilience and productive capacity.
No MDex scores, regional rankings or survey findings have been released. The published timeline is a plan rather than evidence that all interviews have been completed.
NUKUNYA | GHANA | DATA JOURNALISM
Ghana MSME Index: The Numbers Behind MDex
Explore competing establishment counts, the statistical limits of a 5,000-business survey and the evidence needed to judge the new index.
Editorial data snapshot: 5 November 2026
Why the establishment totals need reconciliation
Unresolved definition issue: The two 2024 counts must not be added together or treated as equivalent until GSS definitions, reference periods and census stages have been reconciled.
Bar lengths are proportional to the largest displayed figure. These figures come from secondary reporting, not an independently reconciled official dataset.
How precise could a survey be?
Explore an idealised statistical benchmark. It does not estimate the actual MDex survey’s precision.
Assumptions: simple random sampling without replacement, 95% normal-approximation confidence, population N = 1,867,695 and independent responses. This excludes clustering, unequal weights, coverage bias, non-response and measurement error.
Formula: 1.96 × √[p(1−p)/n] × √[(N−n)/(N−1)] × 100 percentage points.
Eight proposed MDex dimensions
Could examine business profitability, output per worker and enterprise expansion.
These are illustrative analytical questions, not confirmed MDex questionnaire items or scoring weights.Five tests of MDex credibility
- Coverage: Are informal, rural, mobile and home-based enterprises represented?
- Sampling: Are selection probabilities, weighting, non-response and subgroup sample sizes disclosed?
- Transparency: Are indicator definitions, scoring methods, index weights and uncertainty estimates published?
- Privacy: Are commercially sensitive responses protected, with clear limits on access and reuse?
- Impact: Are later lending and employment outcomes evaluated without confusing association with causation?
These are Nukunya’s evaluation criteria, not findings that the proposed index has already met or failed.
What the numbers do not prove
Does a 0.27% sample fraction mean the survey is unreliable?
No. Representativeness depends principally on the sampling design and data quality, not the sample fraction alone.
Does 92.3% informality mean MDex excludes informal businesses?
No. The reported informality figure raises a coverage question; the MDex sampling frame must be examined before concluding that informal enterprises are excluded.
Is the ±1.4-point figure the official MDex margin of error?
No. It is a hypothetical simple-random-sample benchmark for an overall proportion near 50%, not a published MDex precision estimate.
Will the index automatically increase lending?
No. The index could inform decisions, but lending outcomes depend on financial institutions, borrower circumstances, credit policies and economic conditions.
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