MENA: The second newsletter of the regional dialogue on Access to information in MENA region in Arabic and English is available here. It includes summaries of FOI developments in the region. Plans are being made for a third video conference May 29; for details see the newsletter.
NATO: An article on NATO’s lack of transparency by Ian Davis, founding director for NATO WATCH. He concludes:
So what should be done? First, national member parliaments need to sharpen their scrutiny of NATO affairs. At a minimum, this means establishing permanent standing parliamentary committees dedicated to NATO. Second, the democratic mandate of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly needs to be strengthened, with greater accountability and openness about how members are selected. Third, NATO should adopt an information openness policy consistent with the access to information laws already in place in the alliance’s 28 member countries. Such a policy should include guidelines for proactive publication of core information, a mechanism for the public to file requests for information, and an independent review body for hearing appeals against refusals or failures to make information public within a short time-frame. Before proselytizing about ‘good governance’ in foreign lands, NATO needs to look in the mirror and put its own house in order.
Libraries: “The Library and Freedom of Information Revisited,” an article by Paul Sturges and Vesna Crnogorac. The article is on the website of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) – “the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.”
The abstract says:
In an attempt to assess the role of libraries as contributors to the freedom of (official) information published in the journal Alexandria in 2001, Sturges examined both the definition of freedom of information and the actual role of libraries in providing better access to official documentation. He concluded that libraries are not so much agents of freedom of information as iconic representations of commitment to freedom of information. The present article examines progress towards reorienting libraries towards effective participation in the freedom of information process. In the mid 2000s the IFLA FAIFE committee framed an IFLA Manifesto on Transparency, Good Governance and Freedom from Corruption, which was adopted in 2008. Learning materials derived from the manifesto were piloted in India and Vietnam in 2009. By far the most thorough attempt to embed the Transparency Manifesto in the library practice of a country has been led by Crnogorac in Serbia. The importance and success of the whole programme that has so far culminated in the Serbian experience is assessed in the light of the 2001 analysis.
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