Open Budgets: The Open Budget Partnership announces the release of its 2015 survey, stating:
Most countries surveyed provide insufficient information for civil society and the public to understand or monitor budgets, and only a small fraction of countries have appropriate mechanisms for the public to participation in budget processes. Formal oversight institutions also frequently face limitations in performing their function of holding governments to account.
Open Budgets: A new report, “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape” is a collaboration between Open Knowledge, the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency and the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam. Also see blog post on the report.
The report offers an unprecedented empirical mapping and analysis of the emerging issue of open budget data, which has appeared as ideals from the open data movement have begun to gain traction amongst advocates and practitioners of financial transparency.
Open Budgets: A posting by Paolo de Renzio, “Does it Make any Difference? Reviewing the Impacts of Fiscal Transparency and Participation.” One conclusion: “While only a handful of studies can make a convincing claim to identify causal effects, the most rigorous tests tend to find that transparency and participation in budgeting do lead to desirable outcomes.”
Pakistan: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly brings itself back under the coverage of the K-P Right to Information Act 2015, The Tribune reports.
Pakistan: Adnan Aamir reports in The Balochistan Point: “Despite offer of full support by Chief Minister (CM) of Balochistan, Dr. Malik Baloch, bureaucrats of Balochistan gave a cold shoulder to proposed Right to Information (RTI) legislation.” Malik announced that two-member committee will be constituted to review proposed RTI legislation.
Nepal: The Freedom Forum issues a report on success stories of right to information use in Nepal.
United Kingdom: “Ministers and mandarins are covering up internal bungles and Whitehall rows by communicating by Post-it notes,” reports Tom Newton Dunn in The Sun.
Open Data: The Omidyar Network has published a report, “The Impact of Open Data – Initial Findings from Case Studies.” As described, “These case studies – 19, in total – are designed to provide a detailed examination of the various ways open data is being used around the world, across geographies and sectors, and to draw some over-arching lessons.” Among the conclusions: “…we have seen wide variability in the amount and nature of impact across our case studies. Put simply, some projects are more successful than others; or some projects might be more successful in a particular dimension of impact, and less successful in others.”
World Bank: A blog post describes the creation, by the Governance Global Practice (GGP), of the Open Government Global Solutions Group (GSG) to help the Bank to pool ideas, expertise and knowledge in order to better assist our clients in tackling the complex, multifaceted challenges they face in governing in a more open environment.
Open Competition: Making All Voices Count launches its third annual Global Innovation Competition (GIC 2016). “This year’s themes support both the goals of the Open Government Partnership and the Sustainable Development Goals, which this year will replace the MDGs as the marker for global progress on development issues.
India: Raja Muzaffar Bhat writes that bringing Public Private Partnerships (PPP’s) under the ambit of the RTIA “has been a challenging work not only for the anti corruption crusaders.” Venkatesh Nayak writes an article titled, “Puducherry Ports Department sits tight on CIC’s order to disclose PPP-related information under RTI.”
Nigeria: President Muhammadu Buhari makes a public declaration of his personal assets, Breitbart reports.
Scotland: The Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations supports the extension of the FOIA to of all public services, including those provided by charities.
United Kingdom: “The statistics community must shout loud in the debate about Freedom of Information reform or access to data could be set back a generation,” writes Simon Briscoe in his blog Britain in Numbers.
United Kingdom: The Government’s inquiry into whether freedom of information law should be watered down will not be subject to freedom of information, according to The Independent.
United States: A New York Times story on academic conflicts of interest focused on scientists with financial ties to Monsanto based on FOIA’d records. An article in Food Politics discusses the Times story and the issue, as does a reaction story in Forbes.
United States: The Society of Professional Journalists promotes the #FixFOIAby50 campaign in support of FOIA Reform.
United States: U.S. Trade Representative names Timothy Reif, the USTR General Counsel, to also be the USTR chief transparency officer, a new position established by legislation, The Hill reports.
United States: Secretary of State John Kerry names a new czar to improve transparency at the State Department, Janice Jacobs, who will assume the newly created position of “transparency coordinator,” Politico reports. It later emerges that she donated $2,700, the maximum legal amount, to Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign, as reported by Bloomberg.
Media Development: The US Center for International Media Assistance releases: The Politics of Media Development: The Importance of Engaging the Government and Civil Society, by Paul Rothman of CIMA’s staff.
FOIA Journalism: The US request site Muckrock interviews Brad Heath, reporter with USA Today about his use of the FOIA.
India: A call for papers for a national seminar on RTI.
India: The government invites applications for appointment as Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners. The term of Chief Information Commissioner Vijai Sharma ends in December. There are three vacancies on the 10-member commission, The Economic Times reports.
India: A top official tells incoming civil servants that “civil society is not always right. Mostly it is wrong.” He urges them to be alert for misuse of the RTI Act, according to an article in The Hindu.
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