Transparency Activist Directory: The U.S. Sunlight Foundation announced in a blog post that it has begun to create “a repository of civil society organizations working around transparency and open data issues from all around the world.” The group invited additions to its draft spreadsheet with more than 500 entries, not editable – available here. Submissions should go to jkeseru@sunlightfoundation.com and include contact information, a link to your project, area of operation (country or region), a few keywords for the topics you cover and the approach of the project.
OGP: See the May issue of the newsletter by the civil society coordinator of the Open Government Partnership.
United States: The Declassification Engine has started. The project begun at Columbia University in New York City plans to put the documents that have been declassified by the government in an easily searchable online database for research.
United States: A map by OpentheGovernment.org on the frustrations experienced in getting access through FOI to government records.
Open Data Research: The UK group Involve is looking at the relationship between open data, participation and democracy. A blog post invites submission of examples. Involve recently published a pamphlet entitled “From Fairy Tale to Reality: Dispelling the Myths around Citizen Engagement.”
Demand Side Webinar: The OGP Networking Mechanism (Global Integrity) and the World Bank Institute on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. EST, will hold a session on strategies and tools that can be utilized in making active use of open government data.Use this link http://worldbankva.adobeconnect.com/ogpweb/ to login 5 minutes before the Webinar is scheduled to start.
Anti-Corruption: A report by Transparency International (TI) and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) Coalition about the experience of CSOs in the first three years of the UNCAC review process describes obstacles to CSO participation in reviews, including information gaps.
United States: Beth Simone Noveck and Stefaan Verhulst suggest in a blog post that the Internal Revenue Service create a database of information about the controversial nonprofits that are at the center of a current controversy.
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