African Model Law: A posting on the Open Society Foundations website by Maxwell Kadiri & Chidi Odinkalu describes the effort to create a model RTI law for Africa. The report says that Pansy Tlakula, the Human Rights Commission’s special rapporteur on the right of access to information “has delivered” on the project begun in 2010. “By 2011, an initial draft of the model law was put out for consultation. In October this year, the African Commission reviewed the draft model law at its 52nd ordinary session in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire; it provided useful feedback to the special rapporteur and her project team on the basis of which the draft is currently being finalized. The commission is expected to schedule the draft model law for final consideration and possible adoption sometime in 2013.”
Music: ARTICLE 19 Bangladesh has launched a song and music video to spread the word about the right to information and how to use the country’s law. Tathya Adhikarer Gaan tells people how to use the law as a tool for ensuring development.
Public Service Announcement: The Centre for Peace & Development Initiatives (CPDI), supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNST) and in collaboration with Gogi Studios and Numairicals Animation, have created a series of short public service announcements to raise awareness of the the Right to Information in Pakistan.
Jobs: The Open Society Foundations is recruiting for a regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean to lead the Open Society Foundations’ engagements there. http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/jobs/regional-director-latin-america-and-caribbean
Open Data: Access Info Europe and others challenge the Web Foundation’s high ranking of Spain in the first edition of its Open Data Index. “Many open data and transparency activists in Spain were surprised to find Spain in the leading pack, since Spain still doesn’t have an access to information law and there is no coherent national Open Data policy or practice.
Open Data: An interview with Mark Headd, Philadelphia’s first chief data officer, and the former lead of government relations at Code for America. Three main types of information should be released bu cities he says: transit data, crime data, and financial data about where and on what the government spends its money. “Those three sets at a minimum should be available in every city.”
Bulgaria: The Access to Information Programme (AIP) has published Litigation Under Access to Information Legislation. The book is part of the continuous analyses which AIP has been making on the Access to Public Information Act litigation in Bulgaria and is the fifth from the series: http://www.aip-bg.org/en/publications/books/. Authors are the attorneys-at-law from AIP legal team Alexander Kashumov, head of the team, and Kiril Terziyski. The foreword is by Gergana Jouleva, AIP Executive Director.
Mexico: The U.S. radio show “On the Media” did a program on access laws in Mexico.
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