Funding: “Are you involved in a process, project, initiative or practice that tries to strengthen citizens’ voice to get governments to respond and be accountable to them? Are you a ‘do-er’ who reflects on your experience and learns from your own practice and that of others? Or, are you a researcher who is curious about citizen voice, transparency and accountability or the use of technologies for these purposes, and wants to help build the evidence base for work in this field?” These are the questions posed by Making All Voices Count, which is inviting applications for research, evidence-building and learning grants, under two streams of funding: Practitioner Research & Learning Grants and Research Grants.
OGP: The upcoming process for electing government representatives to the Steering Committee is described. The five countries running are Chile, Indonesia, Romania, Sierra Leone and Tunisia.
Research: The Access to Information and Transparency Network (RTA) and the World Bank release an English version of a report (Spanish version) by Silvana Fumega on government-run online platforms to process access to information requests in three countries in Latin America. The report describes the origins of the request systems in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, and their basic characteristics. The report includes some usage data. (The translation does not include the tables and graphics.) Some information is provided on who uses the portals, and for what, but the report does not track usage over time. The systems help requesters, the report says, and need to be further promoted.
European Union: Article 19 and the Access to Information Programme (Bulgaria) have made a submission to the European Court of Human Rights on the right of access to information in international law and how it can be reconciled with data protection interests. There are three pending cases in the ECHR at the moment on RTI.
United States: The Texas Supreme Court rules 6-3 that the Greater Houston Partnership, an economic development group, doesn’t have to open its books even though it receives funds from the city of Houston, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Fiscal Transparency: “Why Policymakers Commit to Transparency: Legitimacy, Insurance, Monitoring and the Importance of the News Media as Mediator,” by Gregory Michener — a report in the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) working paper series.
European Union: The European Commission publishes the offers to Greece by its European creditors, described in Business Insider.
India: A by Priya De addresses key issues about how to frame RTI requests and another discusses on how to deal with invitations by officials to come in to inspect requested documents.
Canada: Conservative senators push a controversial bill (C 377) on the financial transparency of unions through to a final vote, according to news reports (here and here).
IMF: Congo’s government breached its own regulations and the terms of an agreement with the World Bank by failing to disclose the sale of state shares in a joint mining venture, according to the International Monetary Fund, Reuters reports. An IMF official told Reuters the country “does not also comply with some criteria of the governance matrix agreed between the government with the World Bank related to posting contracts and competitive bidding for divestment of government assets.” he added, providing no specifics. The governance matrix requires “open, transparent and competitive procedures” for the sale of mining stakes and that sales be published by the government within 60 days.
Israel: The Ministerial Committee for Legislation, “one of the more important, secretive Knesset committees,” has decided to oppose a bill that would make committee discussions more transparent, according to an article by Jonathan Lis in Haaretz.
United Kingdom: FOIMan blogger Paul Gibbons announces a monthly newsletter with all the latest news on FOI and related subjects.
United Kingdom: See the annual report and the latest newsletter from the information commissioner.
United States: The 2015 U.S. Aid Transparency Review (download it here) finds that despite progress, the U.S. continues to fail its aid transparency commitments.
Open Budgets: The Open Knowledge Foundation publishes “Where Does Europe’s Money Go? A Guide to EU Budget Data Sources”, which aims to help civil society groups, journalists and others to navigate the vast landscape of documents and datasets in order to “follow the money” in the EU.
India: UD Choubey, the director general of the Standing Conference of Public Enterprises, in a commentary on the 10th anniversary of the RTI Act, criticizes the act, writing, “A dominant view is that RTI is often abused by vested interests and habitual information seekers, which affect the overall productivity of the enterprises.: Among other suggestions, he recommends, “Since considerable efforts go into the provision of information, it is only fair that the CPSEs also should have the right to know the identity of the persons seeking the information, the motive and the personal interest, if any, which may sometimes be prejudicial to the interests of the company.”
India: Competent authorities have been designated under the Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act 2009, according to a report in Greater Kashmir.
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