The Transparency Advisory Group (TAG) in South Asia has recommended making private sector bodies and political parties subject to right to information laws.
These were among a series of just-released recommendations decided on during the group’s sixth meeting, held in February. See detailed report on meeting and summary. The group also addressed the role of the media, gender bias and a variety of ways to improve access to information.
The group was set up in 2012 to advise governments and other stakeholders on the establishment and strengthening of RTI regimes in South Asia. Members include retired and serving senior officials, information commissioners, activists and academics from South Asian countries, and from Mexico, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and the US. The co-chairs are Iffat Idris, a development consultant from Pakistan, and Shamsul Bari, Founder and Chairman of Research Initiatives in Bangladesh.
In addition to announcing its recommendations, TAG launched of a two-volume TAG publication: Empowerment through Information: The Evolution of Transparency Regimes in South Asia. Volume 1 comprises country status reports as well as a number of papers seeking to rewrite the dominant narrative on the emergence of RTI in countries which have had RTI laws for some time (India, Bangladesh, Nepal). Volume 2 presents the findings of two detailed studies, one looking at RTI use in Bangladesh (perceptions, response, public sector capacity) and the other in India (who is using RTI, for what…). The publication is available on the TAG website.
Some of the group’s recommendations are country-specific, others are “cross-cutting priorities.” On these, the TAG summary says:
Role of Media – The media can potentially play very important roles in relation to RTI: advocating for RTI legislation and implementation; raising public awareness about RTI; reporting on RTI stories and issues; using RTI for investigative journalism. In the TAG meeting, the question of how to incentivise or persuade media channels/newspapers to report on RTI was considered. Recommendations were made for: training of journalists in RTI (reporting on RTI, and using it in investigative journalism); award schemes to incentivise journalists to use RTI; building communication capacity of RTI activists to provide stories; engagement with media owners to promote reporting on RTI; and encouragement of media houses to practise transparency themselves.
Private Sector – The private sector is generally not covered within the scope of RTI legislation: at most NGOs that receive public funds and private sector bodies carrying out public functions are included. In the TAG meeting several factors were cited justifying transparency laws applying to private sector bodies, notably: their role providing key services; their influence on key sectors such as the environment and the economy; the collusion of some private sector bodies in public sector corruption; the rise of public-private partnerships. There was debate about whether private bodies should be directly included in RTI laws, or transparency laws should be introduced for specific sectors such as the environment. The meeting recommended that private sector bodies be covered under transparency laws, and community led organizations such as consumers associations, be encouraged to identify areas of public interest in relation to private sector bodies and apply RTI/other transparency laws.
Gender Concerns and Awareness – The meeting heard that levels of awareness of RTI and use of RTI (submitting requests) are generally far lower for women in the South Asia region than for men, especially in rural areas. The low figure can be accounted for by women’s traditional responsibility of looking after their homes and families (generally men deal with external agencies), lack of education on the part of women, and even the threat of violence that can face information seekers. Different modalities for raising RTI awareness among women and facilitating them to use RTI provisions were recommended: posters, dramas, TV and radio programmes, NGOs and CSOs, and inclusion of RTI in school curricula.
Backward and Forward Linkages – The success and effectiveness of transparency regimes often depends on the backward and forward linkages that are necessary conditions for transparency regimes to perform. Important backward linkages include organisation of records and training of the staff who receive and process applications for information. Critical forward linkages include independent and credible appeal bodies in case information requests are not responded to properly, and grievance redress institutions/mechanisms. The meeting made a number of recommendations in this regard: records management should be improved; all other laws under which public bodies are required to provide information should be widely disseminated; all public sector staff (not just information officers) should be trained in RTI; grievance redress mechanisms and an independent and empowered anti-corruption body should be established; and whistleblower protection legislation should be introduced.
Political Parties – Many transparency laws do not explicitly require political parties to respond to RTI requests or to proactively disclose all the relevant information. Efforts in some countries to bring political parties under the purview of transparency laws have been frustrated by the political parties themselves. The meeting identified several reasons why political parties should be included under such laws: most receive support in some form from the public exchequer; even those that do not, rely on donations from the public (ordinary citizens) and hence should be accountable to them; election laws require some disclosure but do not cover all relevant information, e.g. details of donations to the party, candidate selection decision making process. Recommendations were made for political parties to be included within the purview of RTI/transparency legislation, and for these to cover all aspects of their functioning.
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