Germany: The Conference of Commissioners for Freedom of Information (Konferenz der Informationsfreiheitsbeauftragten – IFK) has commented on a plan by the Baden-Württemberg government to adopt a FOI act, and said the draft act falls short of the freedom of information standards established in Germany, according to a by lawyers from Squire Patton Boggs. The Conference issued a statement (in German).
Trade Transparency: The full text of the tentatively agreed Trans-Pacific Partnership will likely not be made available for at least a month, but WikiLeaks released what appears to be the final text for the TPP’s chapter outlining terms related to intellectual property.
Call for Papers: Paper proposals are being requested for a panel on Transparent and Open Government: Effective Public Communication in the European Administrative Space, at the forthcoming NISPAcee 24th Annual Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, May 16-21 2016.
Namibia: The National Council of Namibia is the most open public institution in 2015 and the recipient of the golden key award from the Media Institute of Southern Africa, reports The Namibian. MISA commented, “We, yet again, found that the performance of a public institution with regard to access to information is dependent on the individual or the lack of an individual responsible for public relations. Government institutions have to recognise the importance of ensuring that there is an employee or employees dedicated to engaging with the public and the media, and that this office upholds professional standards.” Namibia does not have a FOI law.
Nigeria: 71 public institutions did not provide procurement related information as requested in the FOIA, according to a study by the Public & Private Development Centre.
OGP: Nigeria plans to join the OGP, according to a tweet by a top OGP official. Also in the wind is the prospect that the new Australian government will activate its OGP membership. See report on InnovationAus.com.
OGP: Because the OGP has decided not to make available an attendee list for the OGP Summit in Mexico at the end of this month, an effort is under way to crowd source a list.
Brazil: “Having transparency initiatives in place has the potential over time to make corruption less frequent,” writes Vanessa Macedo is a CLALS research fellow and political science PhD candidate at the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP/Uerj).
Open Contracting: The Open Contracting Partnership releases its 2015 – 2018 Strategy
Zimbabwe: MISA-Zimbabwe objects that the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Broadcasting Services George Charamba is advising MISA against holding a public meeting report, circulated to stakeholders, on the findings of the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry, according to news reports, including one in New Zimbabwe reporting on opposition to plans for new media control legislation.
Commentary: Ben Worthy, a Lecturer in Politics based at Birkbeck College, University of London contributes in Democratic Audit UK an article titled “Transparency in the private sector is likely to evolve gradually through law, politics and experiment.”
United States: New York Times journalist Charles Savage publishes a blog on his FOIA cases.
United States: The origins of the US FOIA are recounted in a Columbia Journalism Review article. The author is Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of the news media and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School. His latest book, The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945-1975, was published last month by Harvard University Press.
Filed under: What's New