The Ghana Systems Project — Strategic Research Programme
A long-horizon, interdisciplinary GAB research programme whose permanent purpose is to build an evidence-based, integrated and continuously revisable understanding of Ghana as a living national system so that GAB and other legitimate users can make more meaningful decisions. Its governed methodology—Evidence, Knowledge, optional Models, decision support and Living Corpus—is an enabling capability, not the programme's replacement purpose. Real-world strategic questions may enter through approved Bounded System Inquiries. The earlier private-sector and 30-year macroeconomic work remains the first empirical anchor. A reusable Country Systems Methodology is only a possible future derivative after demonstrated transfer beyond Ghana. Recommendation: Retain the current architecture and add the Cross-Inquiry Relationship Register as D14. Validate it inside the Phase 0 controlled BSI through the expanded CT-08; do not create a new requirement, phase or database table yet. The architecture is ready for disciplined execution once G2 conditions are explicitly approved. Expected benefits: A reusable national-systems research capability; higher-quality GAB strategy and market intelligence; a durable evidence asset; differentiated consultancy and public thought leadership; a disciplined publication series; and, in later maturity, bounded scenario tools and a reusable Country Systems Methodology. Promoted from Portfolio & Business Analysis initiative d5b8c3a8-396e-49b1-be34-688dc03590bb.
BR-001: The programme must operate as a governed strategic research programme in Portfolio & BA, with each delivery stream separately authorized and bounded before becoming a Project or work package.
NFR-001: Every material fact, claim, hypothesis, interpretation and scenario assumption must be classified and traceable to evidence, provenance, confidence, limitations and revision history.
AR-001: The canonical Knowledge Base must remain logically separate from the Living Corpus of books, essays, papers and public outputs.
ETH-001: The programme must study behavioural patterns under specified conditions and must not assign fixed psychological, commercial, political or cultural traits to Ghanaian, ethnic, regional or social groups.
MTH-001: Major explanations must test multiple disciplinary and competing causal hypotheses rather than rely on a single-discipline or founder-belief explanation.
TR-001: The existing private-sector and 30-year trade/macroeconomic research must be preserved as legacy evidence and migrated into Phase 1 with all cautions and gaps intact.
MOD-001: Scenario or predictive modelling must not begin until descriptive data, causal hypotheses, assumptions, validation strategy and uncertainty controls have passed a separate maturity gate.
PUB-001: No external publication or client-facing claim may be released without Data Trust clearance, interdisciplinary review appropriate to the claim and CEO approval through the governed publication path.
MAT-001: The methodology must use evidence-based maturity levels M0–M6, with explicit review before progression and no automatic promotion based on elapsed time, document completion or completion of the Ghana corpus.
MOD-002: A formal model is optional for a BSI and may be created only when evidence, explanatory need, maturity and validation controls justify it; inquiry success may legitimately end with validated Knowledge and Decision Support.
EPI-001: Every claim entering the programme must pass the Epistemology Framework: explicit claim type, supporting and contradictory evidence, scope conditions, assumptions, falsifiers, confidence rationale and review trigger.
CAP-001: Phase 0 success must be determined by demonstrated methodology capabilities, not completion of architecture documents.
INT-001: Validated BSI findings, contradictions, limitations and provenance must enter the canonical Knowledge Base before they are used for decision support, a model or a Living Corpus derivative.
AR-002: The Knowledge Base must implement three governed internal layers—Evidence, Knowledge and Models—with explicit provenance and review controls at each transition.
PILOT-001: Phase 0 must validate the methodology on a small, controlled Ghana pilot while keeping broader Ghana subject research explicitly out of scope.
GOV-002: Every proposed new research domain must pass a domain-admission gate demonstrating material explanatory value, integration with approved questions, source feasibility, non-duplication, review capacity and a bounded deliverable.
PUR-001: The permanent purpose of the Ghana Systems Project is to develop an integrated, evidence-based and continually revisable understanding of Ghana as a living national system for meaningful decisions; methodology, BSIs, models and publications must remain subordinate to that purpose.
ROLE-001: Every substantive work package must assign evidence-contributor, domain-specialist, systems-integrator and governance-review responsibilities, including independent review at material layer transitions.
BSI-001: Every Bounded System Inquiry must have an approved BSI Specification before research begins, covering decision need, bounded question, scope, exclusions, hypotheses, evidence, Ghana Systems contribution, output path, model justification, integration, risks, roles, exit criteria and knowledge integration.
Maintain the Phase 0 Methodology Lessons Log
Complete G3 Phase 0 reviewer appointment & acceptance — Solomon Owusu Amankwah
Baseline G3 behavioural readiness and reviewer independence
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