FOIA Implementation: A working paper, “Right to Information: Identifying Drivers of Effectiveness in Implementation,” by Stephanie E. Trapnell and Victoria Lemieux, describes the World Bank’s multi-faceted approach to measuring implementation.
United Nations: The UN Statistical Commission’s initial assessment of the still provisionally proposed indicators for an access-to-information target in the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals. The first formal General Assembly discussions take place at the UN next week, beginning with the Commission’s views and findings about statistical or other possible indicators.
Bill Orme, the UN Representative for the Global Forum for Media Development summarizes:
Bottom line: The two initial UNDESA-proposed A2I indicators for SDG 16.10 were (in my view) deeply flawed, for different reasons, and met with unsurprising, easily decoded skepticism on both technical and political grounds by the Commission, which is comprised of and speaks for the UN member states. For the proposed A2I/RTI SDGs target to survive in any meaningful way, a consensus behind better, alternative indicators is required, with active support from UNESCO and a few respected national statistical agencies and development ministries from key member states.
Brazil: ARTICLE 19 South America launched a new set of webpages on its Temáticos website, focusing on access to information about violence against women in Brazil. Entitled Gênero (‘Gender’), new pages feature the report Violência Contra a Mulher no Brasil – acesso à informação e políticas públicas (‘Violence Against Women in Brazil – access to information and public policies’), a survey of information sources on violence against women in Brazil.
Pakistan: An article by Shahzada Irfan Ahmed in The News says “right to Information laws in KPK and Punjab are ranked high in the world,” and asks, “Are they serving the purpose they were meant to?”
World Bank: An article by Jeff Tyson in Devex is about the World Bank’s arm to fund civil society activity, the Global Partnership for Social Accountability, One GPSA activity recently announced is the Social Accountability Media Initiative (SAMI) project. The initiative is intended “to help raise the effectiveness of information and advocacy activities by civil society organizations and other stakeholders that promote good governance and social accountability.”
Open Data: The United Kingdom is the G8 nation most committed to opening data to the public, a new report suggests. A ranking from the Center for Data Innovation, a Washington think tank, finds the U.K. has met the most aspects of a G8 Open Data Charter; elements of the charter, drawn up at a summit in Northern Ireland in 2013, include releasing public data in machine-readable formats, providing high-quantity data across a range of topics, and standardizing metadata, among others. Canada and the United States tied for second place, followed by France, Italy, Japan and Germany, according to CDI’s ranking. Russia, which left G8 in 2014, had the lowest score.
United States: The US has set a new record for denying and censoring federal files under the Freedom of Information Act, an analysis by the Associated Press reveals. The Guardian wrote about the report. The AP also reported:
The public’s right to see government records is coming at an ever-increasing price, as authorities set fees and hourly charges that often prevent information from flowing. Though some states have taken steps to limit the fees, many have not. Such costs are a growing threat to expanding openness at all levels of government. Here’s a look at the costs related to information requests in 18 states.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruit wrote a column, “Government undermining ‘right to know’ laws.”
United States: Overview of Obama record on transparency by Jason Ross Arnold in Washington Post blog.
United States: “Open-records law morphs into tool for corporations, advocates” wrote Kevin G. Hall and Kevin Johnson of the McClatchy Washington Bureau/USA.
United States: The Justice Department issues guidance on proactive disclosure.
United States: The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported on the result of its call for “the most absurd, frustrating, and outrageous interactions with the government that the transparency community experienced in 2014.”
United States: The Sunlight Foundation announces #FOIApoetry, a tool that “allows anyone to craft a verse with a word bank from real documents made public through Freedom of Information requests. Just scroll over redacted portions of the text to reveal and build your poem, one line at a time.”
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